The 122cm telescope. Dedicated in 1942 to Galileo Galilei on the third centenary of his death. It is of conventional design, having a parabolic mirror with secondaries to give Newtonian and Cassegrain foci.
All mirrors are of pyrex glass.
The mounting is of the English type with north and south piers supporting a polar axis with the tube offset and short declination axis. The north pier does not permit full sky coverage around the pole. The latter is supported axially by 18 pads and radially by a system of 24 lever counter balance units equally spaced around the cell. The mirror cell is provided with a variable iris diaphragm. The Cassegrain focus of the telescope has been recently equipped with a Boller and Chivens spectrograph .