Flamsteed Astronomy Society

“The Other Six” — The World’s Great Refractors

  June 9, 2005

NUMBER 5 — 80+50 cm (32-inch) double refractor by Steinheil, Telegrafenberg, Berlin-Potsdam, Germany 1899

The Potsdam Observatory near Berlin is home to number 5.  It is a double refractor with two telescopes in the same tube.  There is an 80 cm (32-inch) and a 50 cm, one for photographic work, the other for visual. At 40 feet focal length, it was built by the German instrument maker Steinheil & Sons using glass blanks by Schott of Jena.  The mount is by Repsolds of Hanover.   It was opened by Kaiser Wilhelm II in August 1899.    [ Pictures]   [ History]

NUMBER 4 — 83+62 cm (33-inch) double refractor by Paul Gautier and les freres Henry, Paris Meudon, France 1891

The French fight back!   In fact, in numbers 4, 5 (Potsdam) and 9 (Greenwich) we see the European National Observatories playing catch-up.  In 1888 the Clarks had scooped the pool with the 36-inch Lick refractor (below) and left the Europeans gasping.  Here at Meudon [ More; More] to the south-west of Paris, in 1891 France was the first to reply with a huge double refractor of 53 feet focal length by Paul Gautier.  The Meudon site is an ancient chateau which burned down at the end of the Franco-Prussian war in 1871 before being rebuilt as the new observatory site.  The telescope is being restored now.

NUMBER 3 — Lick 36-inch by Clark, Mount Hamilton CA 1888

In 1888 the Clarks upped the ante.   The Lick 36-inch leaped into first place by a stonking 6 inches over the Nice 30 inch, previously the world’s largest.  It remained in the lead until overtaken by another Clark, the Yerkes in 1897.   Lick Observatory [ More; More; More; More] was the gift of James Lick, a miner forty-niner who had made buckets of money from land speculation in the San Jose area during the California gold-rush.  He’d never been an astronomer or seen a big telescope but, craving immortality, he bequeathed $700,000 to build the observatory.  He is interred under the main pier of the telescope.  Lick was the first-ever permanent mountain-top observatory 4,600 feet up Mount Hamilton overlooking Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay area.  The incredible engineering to build the mount for this 58-ft Focal length monster was done by Warner & Swasey of Cleveland.

Read On —

On with the countdown.   The text contains links to the relevant websites for more information.

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