Credit: © The Royal Society
Image number: RS.8484
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Reflecting telescope
Date
ca.1750
Creator
James Short (1710 - 1768, British) , Instrument maker
Object type
Archive reference number
Material
Subject
Content object
Description
An 18 inch Gregorian reflecting telescope, mounted on a declination semicircle, with a handle for adjusting and tripod base.
Written about at length in 'A letter from Mr. James Short, F. R. S. to the President, with the description and uses of an equatorial telescope', Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, vol. 46, no. 493. Descriptions of the telescope include: 'Above this Declination-Semicircle is fastened a Reflecting Telescope LL, of the Gregorian Construction, the focal length of its great Speculum being 18 inches.'
James Short (1710-1768) British mathematician and maker of scientific instruments was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1737.
Written about at length in 'A letter from Mr. James Short, F. R. S. to the President, with the description and uses of an equatorial telescope', Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, vol. 46, no. 493. Descriptions of the telescope include: 'Above this Declination-Semicircle is fastened a Reflecting Telescope LL, of the Gregorian Construction, the focal length of its great Speculum being 18 inches.'
James Short (1710-1768) British mathematician and maker of scientific instruments was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1737.
Object history
Exact provenance unknown. Short writes that he made three models of this telescope, one of which he sold and one of which he would 'shew to the Society'. Possible that he donated this latter model to the Society.
Associated place