Signedunsigned
Inscribedin black crayon on box lid: 9 1/2" OBJECTIVE / Focol [sic] Length / 14' 9" ± / Used with finder / 60" REFLECTOR
in ink on tag nailed to front side of box: 9 1/2 in Objective / F 14' 9" / 60-in Finder
Historical AttributesThe 60-inch reflector mentioned here is a telescope purchased by the Harvard College Observatory in 1904 from the estate of British astronomer, A. A. Common. Common had made this instrument in England circa 1889. It is likely that he made these lenses for the objective for the finder scope for his mammoth instrument.
Edward C. Pickering, the director of the Harvard College Observatory planned to use the 60-inch telescope to extend visual photometry to very faint stars. It turned out to be difficult to outfit the telescope for this purpose. It never resolved stars as well as Pickering had hoped. Moreover, photographic photometry had become a better method than the old visual one. Therefore, the telescope was abandoned for photometery and used for investigations such as the determination of the total intensity of stellar radiation.
In the 1920s, the new director, Harlow Shapley, looked to the Common 60-inch as a tool for his research on the extant of the visible universe. One of the Common mirrors was refigured and a new mounting was constructed by J. W. Fecker. This new 60-inch reflector was sent to the new Boyden Station in South Africa, where it became the largest telescope in service in the southern hemisphere. It is not clear whether the finder scope accompanied the 60-inch mirror to South Africa or remained in Massachusetts.