The six-inch aperture mirror is the heart of the telescope. A bowl of bronze lotus leaves embraces the mirror so that it pivots about itself when the telescope is pointed to different parts of the sky or landscape. Reaching out from the side of the lotus bowl, a slender bronze leaf curves gracefully upward about two feet to a prism and eyepiece. If the telescope is pointed at the sun and the image projected onto white paper, the instrument becomes a sundial, and the sun time may be read from the hour circle that encircles the lotus bowl. A table of numbers provided with the instrument allows the viewer to obtain the standard time.
Roman numerals show the proper hour, and graduations divide the circle into ten-minute intervals.
The hour circle, which provides the right ascension of the telescope, has a segment removed so the bronze leaf holding the eyepiece can pass through. This allows the telescope to point to all parts of the sky. Thus, Porter made it possible to have the center of mass of all the moving parts within the mounting points of the instrument, a necessary feature to provide a sturdy, compact, and vibration-free instrument. This was actually an application of the design he had published in Popular Astronomy and Scientific American in 1918 as a new mount for large telescopes. The simplest ideas are always the best, and it was this design that Porter later proposed for the mounting of the 200-inch Hale Telescope built at Mount Palomar in Southern California.