|
Alvan Clark
Alvan Clark (March 8, 1804 – August 19, 1887) was an American astronomer and telescope maker. Biography Born in Ashfield, Massachusetts, Clark started as a portrait painter and engraver (c.1830s–1850s), and at the age of 40 became involved in telescope making. Using glass blanks made by Chance Brothers of Birmingham, England, and Feil-Mantois of Paris, France, his firm Alvan Clark & Sons ground lenses for refracting telescopes. Their lenses included the largest in the world at the time: the at Dearborn Observatory at the Old University of Chicago (the lens originally intended for Ole Miss); also the two telescopes at the United States Naval Observatory and McCormick Observatory, the at Pulkovo Observatory, which was destroyed in the Siege of Leningrad (only the lens survives), the telescope at Lick Observatory (still the third-largest), and later the at Yerkes Observatory, which remains the largest successful refracting telescope in the world. Although not specificall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ashfield, Massachusetts
Ashfield is a New England town, town in Franklin County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 1,695 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Springfield metropolitan area, Massachusetts, Metropolitan Statistical Area. History Ashfield was first settled in 1743 and was officially incorporated in 1765. The town was originally called "Huntstown" for Captain Ephraim Hunt, who died in King William's War, and who had inherited the land as payment for his services. The first permanent settlement was in 1745, by Richard Ellis, an Irish immigrant from the town of Easton, Massachusetts, Easton. The town was renamed upon reincorporation, although there is debate over its namesake; it is either for the ash trees in the area, or because Sir Francis Bernard, 1st Baronet, Governor Bernard had friends in Ashfield, Hampshire, Ashfield, England. The town had a small peppermint industry in the nineteenth century, but for the most ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
