Reflecting telescope with speculum mirror of 9 1/4-inch aperture by James Short, London [6/1364 = 49] on equatorial stand arranged to be used as a Gregorian, Cassegrainian or Newtonian, with spare secondary mirrors in metal case and 3 eyepieces (two oak staves, small brass screws etc added in 1913).

Dated to around 1767--8, this reflecting telescope can be used with any of three different optical configurations by replacing the smaller mirror. Made by James Short then the foremost optical instrument maker in London, it has a 9-inch metal mirror. The telescope is mounted on Short's so called 'universal', a portable equatorial stand with a wooden fork holding the tube and an adjustable polar axis. The whole wooden framework moves on wheels and has carrying rods like a sedan chair. Selling for several hundreds pounds, a considerable sum at the time, an aristocratic dilettante would have originally purchased this extravagant telescope.