The Legacy of the Cutaway Man

Abstract

Russell Porter, artist, explorer, engineer, turned his hobby into an observatory of unprecedented scale in California. Although he was a trained architect, Russell Porter is known as a scientist, photographer, surveyor, and inventor and played a pivotal role in the development of the Palomar Observatory. Though he never foresaw telescope design in his career plans, Porter was intimately involved in the design and other aspects of the Glass Giant, the 200-inch-diameter telescope on Palomar Mountain. In 1915, Porter returned to MIT as a professor of architecture. When the United States entered World War I, Hartness advised the National Bureau of Standards to retain Porter to develop manufacturing techniques for optical instruments, including prisms and reflecting surfaces. Russell Porter’s work remains visible on the Cal Tech campus in Pasadena. A visit to the corridors of the astrophysics building reveals spectacular cosmic images of distant galaxies and nebula along with 30 of Porter’s more than 1000 cutaway design drawings of telescopes.