Credit: © The Royal Society
                             
                         
                     
                         
                         
                             
                                 Image number: RS.10054
                             
                         
                         
                     
                 
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            Model intended to show error adjustments in zodiacal light observation
                                Date
                            
                            
                                1848
                            
                            
                        
                            
                            
                            
                                Creator
                            
                            
                                Charles Piazzi Smyth (1819 - 1900, British) , Astronomer
                            
                            
                        
                            
                            
                            
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                                Material
                            
                            
                            
                        
                            
                            
                            
                                Dimensions
                            
                            
                                height (drawing): 234mm
width (drawing): 198mm
                            
                        
                            
                            
                            width (drawing): 198mm
                                Subject
                            
                            
                            
                        
                            
                            
                            
                                Description
                            
                            
                                View of a model designed by Piazzi Smyth to demonstrate the use of his instrument for observing zodiacal light. The author describes its purpose in the accompanying text: “The mode in which...errors are to be detected by Astronomical observation, and how corrected, may be shown in a model which I have had made, and of which a drawing is appended representing an Equatorial of the ‘English’ construction...placed within a rude resemblance of the celestial sphere...”      
Illustration from the unpublished paper "Attempt to apply instrumental measurement to the zodiacal light...”, by Charles Piazzi Smyth. The paper was written or completed on 25 March 1848 and received by the Royal Society on 13 April. It was eventually withdrawn on 2 November 1848. It contained an appendix, from which this illustration is drawn: “Appendix...describing a simple equatorial instrument, adapted to and sufficient for its measurement.”
Inscribed in ink below: “Model, explanatory of the adjustments of the equatorial instrt.”
                            
                            
                        
                            
                            
                        
                            
                            
                        
                    Illustration from the unpublished paper "Attempt to apply instrumental measurement to the zodiacal light...”, by Charles Piazzi Smyth. The paper was written or completed on 25 March 1848 and received by the Royal Society on 13 April. It was eventually withdrawn on 2 November 1848. It contained an appendix, from which this illustration is drawn: “Appendix...describing a simple equatorial instrument, adapted to and sufficient for its measurement.”
Inscribed in ink below: “Model, explanatory of the adjustments of the equatorial instrt.”