Lord Rosse's telescope at Birr Castle, Ireland
ca. 1857
Countess Mary of Rosse (1813 - 1885, British) , Photographer
height (print): 80mm
width (print): 74mm
width (print): 74mm
Monoscopic view from a stereo image used to produce Plate 24 figure 7 from the paper "On the construction of specula of six-feet aperture; and a selection from the observations of nebulae made with them", by William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, volume 151 (1861) pp.681-746. The great telescope seen from the south, showing the position of the telescope when a man enters the tube to fix the small speculum and remove the cover of the large mirror. The Earl of Rosse is standing in the telescope tube. A group of four other figures are on, or in front of, a mobile platform on rails. These include two of Rosse's children, Clere Parsons standing and Charles Algernon Parsons seated on the platform rail near two male observers. This view has been pasted onto a supporting card with three other photographic figures from the same plate.
This photograph was supplied for reproduction in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.