page_title: Royal Observatory, Greenwich
section_title: 1890s
hierarchical_section_title: Royal Observatory, Greenwich / History / 1890s
caption_attribution_description: English: Altazimuth pavilion Greenwich
context_page_description: The Royal Observatory, Greenwich is an observatory situated on a hill in Greenwich Park, overlooking the River Thames. It played a major role in the history of astronomy and navigation, and because the prime meridian passes through it, it gave its name to Greenwich Mean Time. The ROG has the IAU observatory code of 000, the first in the list. ROG, the National Maritime Museum, the Queen's House and Cutty Sark are collectively designated Royal Museums Greenwich.
  The observatory was commissioned in 1675 by King Charles II, with the foundation stone being laid on 10 August. The site was chosen by Sir Christopher Wren. At that time the king also created the position of Astronomer Royal, to serve as the director of the observatory and to "apply himself with the most exact care and diligence to the rectifying of the tables of the motions of the heavens, and the places of the fixed stars, so as to find out the so much desired longitude of places for the perfecting of the art of navigation." He appointed John Flamsteed as the first Astronomer Royal. The building was completed in the summer of 1676. The building was often called "Flamsteed House", in reference to its first occupant.
context_section_description: The 1890s marked the addition of a new larger refractor, the 28-inch Grubb in the Great Equatorial Dome. Because the new telescope was longer than the old Great refractor, the new dome had to be bigger; thus the famous "onion dome" that expands beyond the diameter of the turret was established. For the tricentennial, it was revitalized with a fibre-glass dome; the old one made of papier-mâché and iron had been taken down.
  The telescope was installed by 1893, with 28-inch diameter glass doublet lens made by Grubb from Chance of Birmingham glass. The new dome was made by T. Cooke and Sons. This replaced a smaller drum-shaped dome.
  The Lassel two-foot reflector was a famous metal-mirror telescope that had been used to discover the Moons Triton and Hyperion. It was donated to the observatory in the 1880s, but was taken down in the 1890s.
  The 1890s also saw the construction of the Altazimuth Pavilion, completed in 1896 and designed by William Crisp.
  In 1898 the Christie Enclosure was established to house sensitive magnetic instruments that had been disrupted by the use of iron at the main facility.
  The Observatory underwent an attempted bombing on 15 February 1894. This was possibly the first "international terrorist" incident in Britain. The bomb was accidentally detonated while being held by 26-year-old French anarchist Martial Bourdin in Greenwich Park, near the Observatory building. Bourdin died about 30 minutes later. It is not known why he chose the observatory, or whether the detonation was intended to occur elsewhere. The novelist Joseph Conrad used the incident in his novel The Secret Agent.
caption: 21st-century view of the Altazimuth Pavilion
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