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Great Melbourne Telescope
Image: Erection of Great Melbourne Telescope, 1869
Source: Museum Victoria
The Great Melbourne Telescope was built by Thomas Grubb of Dublin in 1868 and erected at Melbourne Observatory in 1869. It was a reflector telescope with a speculum (metal) mirror of 48 inches in diameter; at the time it was the second largest telescope in the world and the largest in the southern hemisphere.
The design and construction was overseen by a committee of eminent British astronomers, who developed the telescope to study the nebulae of the southern hemisphere skies. It was the first major telescope built by Thomas Grubb, and revolutionary in many aspects of its design. The firm went on to make many of the major telescopes around the world in the second half of the 19th century.
The telescope never lived up to expectations, due to difficulties with constant tarnishing of its mirrors, flexure in the mirrors, and its relative unsuitability for the new astronomical techniques of photography and spectroscopy. The telescope was operated at Melbourne Observatory by a dedicated Great Melbourne Telescope Observer: Albert Le Seuer (1869-70), E.F. MacGeorge (1870-72), Joseph Turner (1873-83), Pietro Baracchi (1883-92); thereafter it was used only intermittently.
When Melbourne Observatory closed in 1944, the telescope was sold to the Commonwealth Observatory at Mount Stromlo, Canberra. At Mount Stromlo the telescope was given a new 50-inch glass mirror, and became an integral part of Mt Stromlo's work during the 1960s. In the early 1990s the telescope was rebuilt with two detector mosaics for the MACHO project, and the telescope in this form found the first observational evidence for dark matter. Then in January 2003 a bushfire swept across Mt Stromlo, its firestorm destroying the majority of the telescopes and buildings.
Since the early 1980s Museum Victoria had progressively been retrieving discarded parts of the Great Melbourne Telescope as Mt Stromlo rebuilt the instrument. The remaining parts of the telescope at Mount Stromlo were dismantled in 2008 and returned to Melbourne. A project has now commenced to restore the telescope.
References:
Gascoigne, S.C.B. (1995). 'The Great Melbourne Telescope and other 19th century reflectors', Historical Records of Australian Science, 10, pp. 223-245.
Melbourne Observatory (1885). Observations of the Southern Nebulae made with the Great Melbourne Telescope from 1869 to 1885, Part 1. Government Printer, Melbourne.
Robinson, T. R. & Grubb, Thomas (1868). 'Description of the Great Melbourne Telescope', Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, 159, pp.127-161.
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Photograph - Eta Argus Nebula, taken with Great Melbourne Telescope, 1883
Experimental photograph of Eta Argus Nebula taken by Joseph Turner with the Great Melbourne Telescope, 7 January 1883. In 1882 astronomers in Britain and America began to successfully ...
From: South Yarra, Australia Images: 0 -
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Photograph - Erection of Great Melbourne Telescope, Framed, 1869
Framed photograph of the erection of the Great Melbourne Telescope at Melbourne Observatory, in early 1869.
From: South Yarra, Australia Images: 0 -
Stereograph - Erection of the Great Melbourne Telescope at Melbourne Observatory, 1869
Stereograph of the Great Melbourne Telescope being erected at the Melbourne Observatory, 1869.
From: South Yarra, Australia Images: 3 -
No Image Available
Photograph - Eta Argus Nebula, taken with Great Melbourne Telescope, 1883
Experimental photograph of Eta Argus Nebula taken by Joseph Turner with the Great Melbourne Telescope, probably early 1883. In 1882 astronomers in Britain and America began to successf ...
From: South Yarra, Australia Images: 0 -
No Image Available
Photograph - Orion Nebula, taken with Great Melbourne Telescope, 1883
Photograph of the Orion Nebula, taken by Joseph Turner with Great Melbourne Telescope, 26 February 1883. In 1882 astronomers in Britain and America began to successfully use the more s ...
From: South Yarra, Australia Images: 0 -
Stereograph - Erection of the Great Melbourne Telescope at Melbourne Observatory, 1869
Stereograph of the Great Melbourne Telescope being erected at the Melbourne Observatory, 1869.
From: South Yarra, Australia Images: 3 -
Stereograph - Erection of the Great Melbourne Telescope at Melbourne Observatory, 1869
Stereograph of the Great Melbourne Telescope being erected at the Melbourne Observatory, 1869.
From: South Yarra, Australia Images: 3 -
Lithograph - Plate 7, Observations of the Southern Nebulae made with the Great Melbourne T ...
Plate 7 from the Observations of the Southern Nebulae made with the Great Melbourne Telescope 1869 - 1885, by Joseph Turner (Artist) , E.R. Morris (Lithographer) J. Finnie (Printer). L ...
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Lithograph - Plate 2, Observations of the Southern Nebulae made with the Great Melbourne T ...
Plate 2, No. 8 - 19 from the Observations of the Southern Nebulae made with the Great Melbourne Telescope 1869 - 1885, by Joseph Turner (Artist) , E.R. Morris (Lithographer) J. Finnie ...
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Stereograph - Erection of the Great Melbourne Telescope at Melbourne Observatory, 1869
Stereograph of the Great Melbourne Telescope being erected at the Melbourne Observatory, 1869.
From: South Yarra, Australia Images: 3
