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7.5-inch objective lens of Agassiz's telescope
Date: 1900
Inventory Number: 2016-1-0025a
Classification: Objective
Subject:
Maker: Alvan Clark and Sons (1846 - 1958)
Owner: George Russell Agassiz (1862 - 1951)
User: Students' Astronomical Laboratory, Harvard University (1903 - c. 1953)
User: Harvard College Observatory (founded 1839)
Cultural Region:
Place of Origin:
Dimensions:
21.6 × 21.6 × 7 cm (8 1/2 × 8 1/2 × 2 3/4 in.)
Bibliography:
Alvan Clark & Sons: Artists in Optics
Description:
2016-1-0025 is the Students' Astronomical Laboratory 7.5-inch Alvan Clark telescope. The assemblage includes these specific parts, some of which may be stored separately:
2016-1-0025a Objective
2016-1-0025b Objective end of tube
2016-1-0025b Eyepiece end of tube
2016-1-0025c Focuser assembly
2016-1-0025d.1 Dec counterweight 1
2016-1-0025d.2 Dec counterweight 2
2016-1-0025d.3 Dec counterweight 3
2016-1-0025e.1 Tube balance weight 1
2016-1-0025e.2 Tube balance weight 2
2016-1-0025e.3 Tube balance weight 3
2016-1-0025f Finder
2016-1-0025g Equatorial mount
2016-1-0025h Pier
2016-1-0030 is an accessories box found in the dome with the telescope.
2016-1-0031 is an eyepiece found in that box, but may be unrelated.
2016-1-0032 is an eyepiece power chart found in the dome.
2016-1-0025a Objective
2016-1-0025b Objective end of tube
2016-1-0025b Eyepiece end of tube
2016-1-0025c Focuser assembly
2016-1-0025d.1 Dec counterweight 1
2016-1-0025d.2 Dec counterweight 2
2016-1-0025d.3 Dec counterweight 3
2016-1-0025e.1 Tube balance weight 1
2016-1-0025e.2 Tube balance weight 2
2016-1-0025e.3 Tube balance weight 3
2016-1-0025f Finder
2016-1-0025g Equatorial mount
2016-1-0025h Pier
2016-1-0030 is an accessories box found in the dome with the telescope.
2016-1-0031 is an eyepiece found in that box, but may be unrelated.
2016-1-0032 is an eyepiece power chart found in the dome.
Signedunsigned
Inscribedin pencil on edge of flint: JWB 1989
Historical AttributesOn January 26, 1899, George R. Agassiz ordered the telescope from Alvan Clark and Sons for his personal use (as reported in the notebook kept by Carl Lundin, chief optician at the Clark factory, in 1898-1900.) The 7.5-inch telescope was delivered to Agassiz in 1900.
Around 1903, Agassiz lent it to Harvard for use in the new Students’ Astronomical Laboratory on Jarvis Street in Cambridge, a site now occupied by the Harvard Law School. The telescope had a separate building. In 1905, Agassiz made the telescope a permanent gift. (Perhaps he already had his sights on getting a bigger telescope from Clark like the one he acquired in 1911, which is now at the Lowell Observatory.)
In 1917, Harlan Stetson reported that “The seven and on-half inch equatorial telescope, the gift of George R. Agassiz, ’84, has been of great service in connection with both the elementary and advanced courses in astronomy, and is frequently open to friends of the University and the interested public.”
In cooperation with the USNO, this telescope took a daily photograph of the Sun's surface from about 1928 to 1934.
In 1950, the Students’ Astronomical Laboratory was closed, because the building needed to be removed for new graduate dormitories. The Department of Astronomy was transferred during the summer to Byerly Hall, Radcliffe. The 7.5-inch telescope and its dome were transferred to the grounds of the Harvard College Observatory at Garden Street.
The 7.5 inch telescope was featured in various Harvard reports about the work of the Students' Astronomical Laboratory and about the telescope's maintainence in the 1950s after it was taken to Garden Street. The telescope also appears in the local Chicago Tribune in 1907.
At times, Harvard lore has referred to this telescope as only 7-inch aperture, and Warner and Arial's book on the Clarks misrepresents the telescope as 7 1/4 inches and lists it twice under different owner's names.
Around 1903, Agassiz lent it to Harvard for use in the new Students’ Astronomical Laboratory on Jarvis Street in Cambridge, a site now occupied by the Harvard Law School. The telescope had a separate building. In 1905, Agassiz made the telescope a permanent gift. (Perhaps he already had his sights on getting a bigger telescope from Clark like the one he acquired in 1911, which is now at the Lowell Observatory.)
In 1917, Harlan Stetson reported that “The seven and on-half inch equatorial telescope, the gift of George R. Agassiz, ’84, has been of great service in connection with both the elementary and advanced courses in astronomy, and is frequently open to friends of the University and the interested public.”
In cooperation with the USNO, this telescope took a daily photograph of the Sun's surface from about 1928 to 1934.
In 1950, the Students’ Astronomical Laboratory was closed, because the building needed to be removed for new graduate dormitories. The Department of Astronomy was transferred during the summer to Byerly Hall, Radcliffe. The 7.5-inch telescope and its dome were transferred to the grounds of the Harvard College Observatory at Garden Street.
The 7.5 inch telescope was featured in various Harvard reports about the work of the Students' Astronomical Laboratory and about the telescope's maintainence in the 1950s after it was taken to Garden Street. The telescope also appears in the local Chicago Tribune in 1907.
At times, Harvard lore has referred to this telescope as only 7-inch aperture, and Warner and Arial's book on the Clarks misrepresents the telescope as 7 1/4 inches and lists it twice under different owner's names.
Curatorial Remarksin pencil on edge of flint lens,"JWB 1989" refers to John W. Briggs, who cleaned the objective in 1989.
Primary SourcesNotebook kept by Carl Lundin, chief optician at the Clark factory, in 1898-1900. (Lundin Papers, University of Texas, Austin).
Popular. Astronomy. 9 (1901): 287-288.
Harlan Stetson, “The Astronomical Laboratory in War Time,” Harvard Alumni Bulletin, 20 (1917): 620-624, see p. 623, 2nd column.
Harvard University Catalogue, 1920, p. 573: “Students’ Astronomical Laboratory.”
See sources listed with the constituent record of the Students' Astronomical Laboratory, Harvard University.
Old maps showing the Students' Astronomical Laboratory on Jarvis Street show buildings and domes:
c. 1913, showing the labeled building: website.
1916, showing lots of little out-buildings: website.
1935, showing two domes next to the building: website.
Popular. Astronomy. 9 (1901): 287-288.
Harlan Stetson, “The Astronomical Laboratory in War Time,” Harvard Alumni Bulletin, 20 (1917): 620-624, see p. 623, 2nd column.
Harvard University Catalogue, 1920, p. 573: “Students’ Astronomical Laboratory.”
See sources listed with the constituent record of the Students' Astronomical Laboratory, Harvard University.
Old maps showing the Students' Astronomical Laboratory on Jarvis Street show buildings and domes:
c. 1913, showing the labeled building: website.
1916, showing lots of little out-buildings: website.
1935, showing two domes next to the building: website.
ProvenanceRetrieved from the dome in the parking lot of the Harvard College Observatory in 2016 and transferred to CHSI.
Published ReferencesDeborah Jean Warner and Robert B. Ariail, Alvan Clark & Sons: Artists in Optics, 2nd ed. (Richmond, VA: Willmann-Bell, Inc., 1995), 47, 108-109, 204.
Note that the telescope is listed as two different instruments--both as 7 1/4 inch aperture--but one belonging to Harvard and the other George R. Agassiz