Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 50

Description of the Instruments

Description of the Instruments.

The instrumental equipment consists of a Telescope, a Meridian Circle, an Altitude Azimuth Instrument, a Transit Theodolite, a Sextant and Mercurial Horizon, a Side-Clock, a Solar Clock, and a Twenty-inch Celestial Globe.

The Telescope (1) is an equatorial refractor of 7½ inches clear aperture and 10 feet [unclear: inches] focal length, made by Merz & Son, of Munich, Germany. The mounting is [unclear: admirably] executed, combining great delicacy with great strength and stability, and [unclear: fers], in some respects, from that of any other instrument in this country. It is [unclear: punished] with a filar and an annular micrometer, the wires of which may be illumined, in either a bright or dark field, at pleasure. There are six positive eye-pieces [unclear: the] Ramsden form, varying in power from 100 to 570, five of Gundlach's Periscopic pieces, with powers from 85 to 1016, and eight negative eye-pieces, with powers [unclear: from] 70 to about 600. The instrument is also furnished with reflecting prisms and shades. The hour circle is 10 inches in diameter. It is graduated on silver to [unclear: gle] minutes, and reads by two verniers to 4 seconds of time. The declination [unclear: cle] is 15 inches in diameter. It is graduated on silver to 10 minutes, and reads by verniers to 10 seconds of are.

The finder was made by Alyan Clark & Sons, of Cambridgeport, Mass. It has an [unclear: overture] of 1 /87 inches and a focal length of 17½ inches. The reading microscopes [unclear: are] made by R. B. Gans, of Boone county, Mo. The telescope is furnished with [unclear: ustable] clock-work, by which any heavenly body may be kept apparently at rest the field of view.

This telescope has an interesting history. It was ordered in 1848 from the [unclear: establement] of Merz & Mahler, of Munich, for the use of Shelby College, Shelbyville, [unclear: ntucky]. It was received at Shelbyville in November, 1850, and cost, when mounted, 8000. It was mounted under the direction of Prof. Joseph Winlock, and used [unclear: by] while he was a professor in that Institution. After Prof. Winlock went to Carnage. Mass., he borrowed this Telescope, and in connection with Dr. B. A. Gould, [unclear: unabolished] there the Cloverden Observatory. In "Loomis's Recent Progress of Ironomy," published in 1856, under the head of "Cloverden Observatory, [unclear: Cambridge] Massachusetts," the following statement is made:

"The great Telescope belonging to Shelby College was temporarily loaned to of, [unclear: Joseph] Winlock, and was removed to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where [unclear: ternary] accommodations were provided for it, and this establishment is known by the [unclear: me] of 'Cloverden Observatory.'" * * * * * * "Numerous page 50 observations on comets, and on some of the newly discovered planets [unclear: have] made with this Telescope by Dr. B. A. Gould and Prof. Joseph Winlock, which have been published in 'Gould's Astronomical Journal.' This [unclear: great]scope has recently been returned to Shelby College."

In 1869, Prof. "Winlock, who was then Director of the Observatory [unclear: of] College, went with his assistants to Shelbyville, Kentucky, and there used [unclear: this] scope in observing the total eclipse of the sun, which occurred on the 7th [unclear: of] that year.

In January, 1880, our four-inch refractor and five hundred dollars [unclear: were] in exchange for this Telescope. It was received in Columbia January mounted March 13, 1880.