Chapter ID: CBB457415462

The Wanganui Refractor and Its Remarkable English Equatorial Mounting (2016)

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The first all-metal English equatorial mounting of the ‘Cross Axis’ type was constructed in 1859 for a 24.1-cm (9.5-in) Cooke refractor owned by Isaac Fletcher of Carlisle, northern England. Over the next ten years Fletcher used this telescope for systematic observations of known double stars, and after his death it was acquired by S. Chatwood of Manchester. In 1902 the telescope was purchased by J.T. Ward for the newly-formed Wanganui Astronomical Society in New Zealand. Ward used the telescope to discover new southern double stars, and it was also the mainstay of public viewing nights. This educational function has remained through to the present day, and during the 1980s and 1990s O. Warren reactivated a micrometric double star program involving the re-measurement of the Ward and other southern double stars. Until recently, when the Carter Observatory’s equally-historic Cooke refractor was renovated, the ‘Fletcher Telescope’ was New Zealand’s largest operational refractor, and it has been maintained in excellent mechanical and optical condition.

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Authors & Contributors
Orchiston, Wayne
Orchiston, Wayne
Bolton, Catherine
Darlington, Vicki
Taibi, Richard
Gilmore, Alan
Concepts
Telescopes
Instruments, astronomical
Astronomical observatories
Astronomy
Scientific apparatus and instruments
Public understanding of science
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
18th century
17th century
Modern
20th century, late
Places
New Zealand
United States
Oslo (Norway)
Melbourne (Victoria, Australia)
Queensland (Australia)
Bologna (Italy)
Institutions
Washburn Observatory
Osservatorio astronomico universitario di Bologna
Observatoire de Paris
Lowell Observatory
Lick Observatory
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