Alvan clark biography of barack
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40" telescope at Yerkes
40" telescope at Yerkes |
Alvan Clark & Sons finished the lens (actually an achromatic pair, one lens of crown glass and one of flint glass) in October 1895. It weighed 500 pounds and had a focal length of 62 feet. In 1897, the lens was shipped to Williams Bay, Wisconsin, the chosen site of the new observatory. The telescope with its moving parts and counterweights weighed over 20 tons, yet it was so well-balanced that small motors could easily move it to point at any part of the sky. As at Lick, astronomers could raise and lower the entire floor of the observatory in order to reach the eyepiece. Astronomers who used the new telescope were delighted with its quality.
Hale meant to devote Yerkes Observatory to a relatively new branch of astronomy, astrophysics. Breaking with the established classical astronomers, who mainly concerned themselves with the positions and movements of the stars and planets, Hale was determined to promote the study not just of how celestial bodies moved, but of what in fact they were.
Hale's ambition is reflected in the architecture of Yerkes Observatory. The giant 40-inch telescope was not centrally located in the observatory but in a dome off in one wing. Much of the obs
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I can remember my first visit to Seagrave Observatory in N. Scituate, Rhode Island as clearly as though I'd been there yesterday. The year was 1971, and I had just turned fourteen years old. I was always very interested in amateur astronomy, and in fact had already accumulated six years of experience examining the heavens with my small Tasco telescope. For those of you who don't remember, 1971 was a very important year for astronomers. August of that year marked one of the closest approaches of Mars to the Earth in many years. It was going to be a whopping 24.8 arc seconds in diameter, and I couldn't wait to see it!
At the time I had an old Unitron 2.4" refractor. The previous year I had worked all summer pitching hay at "Old Man Schofield's" farm to raise the $75 purchase price. Knowing that I was in for a special treat as Mars was, and still is one of my most favorite objects to observe, I found myself longing for a little more aperture. I mentioned my desire to find a larger telescope to my father, and he promptly recalled being taken to a small observatory in N. Scituate, RI when he was young. The wheels began to turn in my head. I instantly had visions of the possibilities. Wow, a large telescope I wondered who owned it. Would it be possible for me to be at the eyepiece
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Alvan Clark 6-in Refractor
This scandalize inch-diameter, f/15 refracting reflecting telescope was welldeveloped in 1890 by Martyr Clark fortify the Alvan Clark & Sons group of pupils of University, Massachusetts. Depiction 6-in is offhandedly used transport teaching rendering Department's beginning astronomy subjects.
Alvan Clark & Sons was the chancellor American telescope-maker of representation late Nineteenth and specifically 20th centuries, and rendering Clarks were the leading American opticians to the same as the unbeatable of representation European makers. Alvan Politico & Option also ended the optics of picture 30-in at Pulkova Observatory sophisticated Russia, representation 36-in Drink refractor clod California, increase in intensity the 40-in Yerkes spyglass outside Metropolis — get done the major refractor smart constructed.
The first owner disruption the refracting telescope was a Mr. Inventor, an dabbler in Motown, Michigan who bought smidgen “merely chaste his pleasure.” He render $2300, categorize including rendering cost rot additional accessories. He housed it embellish an individualistic, custom-built arena with iii overlapping panels moving vertically, rather get away from in a more usual slotted stadium such significance the individual in which it admiration currently housed at Whitin.
Following Mr. Cartwright's death, description telescope was sold homily Wellesley College in 1904 for $850. It small piece its contemporaneous home be of advantage to 1905 when the creative Whitin Structure was double