Sheepshanks equatorial was a 6.7 inch (170 mm) aperture

refracting telescope A refracting telescope (also called a refractor) is a type of optical telescope that uses a lens as its objective to form an image (also referred to a dioptric telescope). The refracting telescope design was originally used in spyglasses and a ...

installed in 1838 at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. The telescope was donated to the observatory by the astronomer

Richard Sheepshanks Richard Sheepshanks (30 July 1794, in Leeds – 4 August 1855, in Reading) was a British astronomer. Personal life He was born the son of Joseph Sheepshanks, a Leeds textile manufacturer of the well-to-do Sheepshank family of Bilton, Harrogate. ...

. The telescope had a doublet objective lens made by Cauchoix of Paris. Originally it was mounted on a clockwork driven equatorial mounting by

Grubb Parsons Sir Howard Grubb, Parsons and Co. Ltd. was a telescope manufacturer, more commonly known as Grubb Parsons. It was based in Newcastle upon Tyne, in England. They were a noted telescope maker throughout the 19th and 20th century, making telescope th ...

on a stone pillar. From 1835 to 1963 it was in the Sheepshanks dome at the Greenwich observatory, and from 1963-1982 in the Altazimuth Pavilion. In the early 1980s it was placed in storage. The telescope's Sheepshanks dome was in between the later Great Equatorial Building and the prime Meridian. The focal length of the telescope has been quoted as 6 feet 2½ inches (1.9 meters) in one source, but according to another it is 8 feet 2 inches (2.5 meters). The telescope tube was made of wood. An 1840 report from the Observatory noted of the new Sheepshanks telescope: Still in service over half a century later, an 1896 report by W. H. M. Christie had this to say about the Sheepshanks at that time: At one time the Sheepshanks refractor was the largest aperture telescope at Greenwich. One of the instruments for the telescope was a wire micrometer.

Observations

One of its observations was of

Comet Encke Comet Encke , or Encke's Comet (official designation: 2P/Encke), is a periodic comet that completes an orbit of the Sun once every 3.3 years. (This is the shortest period of a reasonably bright comet; the faint main-belt comet 311P/PanSTARRS ha ...

. The Sheepshanks was used to observe the moon occulting stars in 1905. Some of the stars that were observed include Bradley 687, 130 Tauri, and 26 Geminorum- among others. In addition to the

occultation An occultation is an event that occurs when one object is hidden from the observer by another object that passes between them. The term is often used in astronomy, but can also refer to any situation in which an object in the foreground blocks ...

of stars by the Moon, the Sheepshanks equatorial is also reported to have been used to observe the

moons of Jupiter There are 82 known moons of Jupiter, not counting a number of moonlets likely shed from the inner moons. All together, they form a satellite system which is called the Jovian system. The most massive of the moons are the four Galilean moons: ...

Disambiguation

There are other telescopes bearing the name Sheepshanks, for example the Sheepshanks telescope, No 3; this was a telescope of 4.6 inches aperture and 5 feet of focal length and used with spectroscope in the 1860s. There was also telescope at a Cambridge completed in 1898.

References

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External links

Article about Sheepshanks equatorial19th century watercolour painting showing Sheepshanks dome
Optical telescopes Royal Observatory, Greenwich

Observations

Disambiguation

See also

References

External links