Herschel reflecting telescope
Date
1796
Object type
Library reference
RCN 36578
Material
Technique
Dimensions
height (print): 230mm
width (print): 296mm
width (print): 296mm
Subject
Description
View of an astronomical reflecting telescope of 40-foot length, employing a 47-inch mirror, with two male figures to give scale. Designed and built by William Herschel and used by William and Caroline Herschel, the telescope was installed at Observatory House, Slough, England. The instrument was constructed in the period 1785-1789, with the first observation through it being made on 19 February 1787. It was the largest such telescope in the world when completed and it was eventually dismantled in 1840.
Plate appearing at pp.378/379 of the Bibliotheque britannique; ou recueil extrait des ouvrages Anglais périodiques…, tome premier (Geneva, 1796). The illustration accompanies the anonymous article ‘Description du grand télescope d’Herschel’, pp.711-735, based upon an original paper, ‘Description of a forty-feet reflecting telescope’, by William Herschel which appeared in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, v.85 (1795) pp.347-409.
Reversed (left to right) version of the original Royal Society plate. Not signed by artist or printer. Inscribed below: ‘Telescope d’Herschel de 40 pieds.’ In his own description of this view Herschel wrote that it ‘represents a view of the telescope in a meridional situation, as it appears when seen from a convenient distance by a person towards the south-west of it.’
William Herschel (1738-1822) German-born British musician and astronomer was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1781.
Caroline Lucretia Herschel (1750-1848) German-born British astronomer.
Plate appearing at pp.378/379 of the Bibliotheque britannique; ou recueil extrait des ouvrages Anglais périodiques…, tome premier (Geneva, 1796). The illustration accompanies the anonymous article ‘Description du grand télescope d’Herschel’, pp.711-735, based upon an original paper, ‘Description of a forty-feet reflecting telescope’, by William Herschel which appeared in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, v.85 (1795) pp.347-409.
Reversed (left to right) version of the original Royal Society plate. Not signed by artist or printer. Inscribed below: ‘Telescope d’Herschel de 40 pieds.’ In his own description of this view Herschel wrote that it ‘represents a view of the telescope in a meridional situation, as it appears when seen from a convenient distance by a person towards the south-west of it.’
William Herschel (1738-1822) German-born British musician and astronomer was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1781.
Caroline Lucretia Herschel (1750-1848) German-born British astronomer.
Associated place