Yapp telescope
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The Yapp telescope is a 36-inch (3 foot / ~91.44 cm) reflecting telescope of the United Kingdom, now located at the Observatory Science Centre at
Herstmonceux Herstmonceux ( , ; ) is a village and civil parish in the Wealden District of East Sussex, England, which includes Herstmonceux Castle. The Herstmonceux Medieval Festival is held annually in August. History The name comes from Anglo-Saxon ...
. It was ordered from
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 ...
in 1931 by the
Royal Observatory, Greenwich The Royal Observatory, Greenwich (ROG; known as the Old Royal Observatory from 1957 to 1998, when the working Royal Greenwich Observatory, RGO, temporarily moved south from Greenwich to Herstmonceux) is an observatory situated on a hill in ...
, and installed in a new dome building there. With a reflecting mirror 36 inches wide (91 cm) and a focal length of 4.57 meters (15 ft), it was the largest telescope in use at the Observatory in Greenwich until the late 1950s. Instruments for the Yapp reflector included two spectrographs, but also had an option for an eyepiece. It was overall a Cassegrain reflecting design on an equatorial mounting, and it had a 6-inch guide telescope also. One of the spectrographs was made by Adam Hilger, Ltd., and was delivered in 1937. The telescope was inaugurated on 2 June 1934 (Visitation day), opened by the First Lord of the Admiralty. The Royal Astronomer was there and noted that it had been 40 years since a large telescope was added to the observatory. The Yapp building dome was completed in 1932, and the telescope is located in area called the Christie Enclosure in Greenwich Park, with the building about 350 yards (320 meters) east of the main Observatory buildings. The drive for the equatorial, as well as dome rotation was done with electric motors. The original Yapp dome building at Greenwich was red brick, with a dome of iron lattice with paper mache covered with copper. In the late 1950s the telescope was taken down and moved to Herstmonceux (the whole institution was being relocated) where it was put in Dome B. The Yapp dome building was taken down and sent to the Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope to house the planned Elizabeth telescope. An example of astronomical studies done with Yapp reflector, is ''Spectroscopic Observations of the Be Stars η Cen, γ Cas and Φ Per''. This was a study done in the 1970s, with the Yapp using an
echelle spectrograph An echelle grating (from French ''échelle'', meaning "ladder") is a type of diffraction grating characterised by a relatively low groove density, but a groove shape which is optimized for use at high incidence angles and therefore in high diffract ...
to record the data. In 1984, the Yapp telescope was tested with an echelle spectrograph from
Queen's University Belfast , mottoeng = For so much, what shall we give back? , top_free_label = , top_free = , top_free_label1 = , top_free1 = , top_free_label2 = , top_free2 = , established = , closed = , type = Public research university , parent = ...
and a CCD camera.Bates, B. & McKeith, C. & Jorden, P. & Breda, I.. (1985). High dispersion spectroscopy trials using an echelle spectrograph with CCD camera. Astronomy and Astrophysics. 145. 321-323.
/ref> Observations of the stars
Alpha Cygni Deneb () is a first-magnitude star in the constellation of Cygnus, the swan. Deneb is one of the vertices of the asterism known as the Summer Triangle and the "head" of the Northern Cross. It is the brightest star in Cygnus and the 19 ...
(Deneb) and Alpha Boo (Acturus) using this instrumentation on the 90 cm (36-inch) Yapp reflector were conducted in the summer of 1984. The results were published in the 1985 research paper ''High dispersion spectroscopy trials using an echelle spectrograph with CCD camera.'' The Yapp telescope along with the 98-inch Herstmoncuex INT telescope collected observations on stellar radial velocities between 1964 and 1971. The Herstmonceux site was used as an observatory into the 1980s, after which it then transition to a popular science museum, and the Yapp telescope remains there. The site closed in 1990s for astronomy and has been a noted tourist and education attraction, with preserved telescopes like the Yapp providing an example of a reflecting telescope. This was one of the biggest at Herstmonceux until the 98-inch Isaac Newton Telescope was commissioned in 1967, although it was moved to La Palma island off the coast of Spain by the 1980s. There was also a 38-inch Hargreaves telescope at Herstmonceux, but it was not put into action particularly.


See also

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List of largest optical telescopes in the British Isles List of largest optical telescopes in Ireland and the United Kingdom is a list of the largest optical telescopes in the British Isles, including in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Some of the most famous telescopes would be Herschel's reflec ...
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List of largest optical telescopes in the 20th century The following is a list of the largest optical telescopes in the 20th century, paying special attention to the diameter of the mirror or lens of the telescope's objective, or aperture. Aperture rank currently goes approximately by the usable physi ...


References

{{Reflist Optical telescopes Royal Observatory, Greenwich