Refracting telescope and tripod
- Object Number:
- 1988-268 Pt1
- type:
- instrument component and telescope - refracting
Refracting telescope of 4 1/8-inch aperture by Alvan Clark and Sons, Cambridge, Massachusetts, mahogany tube with finder telescope, brass on iron equatorial mounting and wooden tripod plus accessories.
Dated to 1870--80, this telescope was made by the American instrument maker Alvan Clark of Cambridge, Massachusetts near Boston. The telescope has a 4-inch aperture lens and a tapering mahogany tube. To aid the location of objects under study, the telescope is provided with a smaller finder telescope. It is carried on the earliest surviving example of an equatorial mounting made by this telescope maker. Prior to the emergence of Alvan Clarke, most telescopes sold in America were imported from Europe. Later in the nineteenth century, the Clarke Company produced most of the world's largest optics for refracting telescopes. The largest they made being a 40-inch lens supplied to the Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin in 1895.