Word: refractors
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Harvard College Observatory prepares for its centennial celebration on December 27, its staff scarcely glances back over the arduous way travelled since that meagre beginning in 1846, when the first permanent observation station was founded: a ten-room building on Summer House Hill, equipped only with a 15-inch refractor and meridian circle determinants of time and star positons...
While the 15-inch refractor remains, though merely as a monument to the past, the meridian circle equipment has long gathered dust in an obscure store-room. In the meantime, astronomic investigation at the University, with the Summer House Hill establishment as control center, has assumed Herculean proportions, its activities diversified, its observation posts so scattered over the face of the earth that it may truly be said, "The stars never shine without the eye of Harvard upon them...
Interest was aroused, however, and individual as well as society financial support finally warranted purchase of a refractor with a 15-inch aperture. The lens arrived at Cambridge in December, 1846, was erected in a 30-feet dome, and thus the College Observatory was born. Obsolete as this ancient refractor now seems, it was instrumental in bringing the Observatory to the world's attention with the discovery of the eighth and ninth satellites of Saturn...
...From this small beginning, big tough it appeared at the time, the Observatory has grown to one of the largest research institutions in the world," says Charles A. Federer, Jr., Editor of the Observatory's monthly magazine, Sky and Telescope. The old refractor and meridan circle apparatus have been replaced long ago by more than 30 separate instruments, varied in design and highly specialized in function...
Hardships endured by midnight watches in the smaller dome belonging to the six-inch refractor were experienced by those who had to squat down on the floor in the cold night air to see Mars. A College Junior amplified the spectacle by recalling his recent observations of the receding Martian...