The First Aluminum Observatory Dome

Just west of here, on a Pittsburgh hillside in nineteen thirty, a group of amateur astronomers built something the world had never seen: the first known astronomical observatory topped with an aluminum dome. The project was designed and constructed by local astronomer Leo J. Scanlon and his colleagues.

Scanlon erected the Valley View Observatory beside his own home on Van Buren Street, and his gleaming metal dome solved a problem that had plagued observatories for centuries: wooden and masonry domes were heavy, prone to rot, and slow to open. The lightweight aluminum design proved practical, and aluminum domes followed. The silver half-sphere many picture when they imagine a telescope is said to have begun right here.