Heliostat
date: label: date made
content: after 1867
name: label: maker
content: Secretan
notes: label: Description
content: A heliostat throws sunlight where it might be used for photography or scientific observations. Jean Thiebaut Silbermann (1806-1865), a physics demonstrator at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers in in Paris, designed this form in 1843. This example has an octangular mirror, a clockwork mechanism, as tri-leg base with leveling screws, and a “Secretan à Paris” inscription on the clock housing.
label: Description
content: Noël Paymal Lerebours (1807–1873), a French optician, and Marc Secretan (1804–1867), a Swiss mathematician, established a scientific instrument shop in Paris in 1845, under the heading Lerebours et Secretan. Secretan became sole owner of the firm in 1854. Following his death in 1867, his heirs dropped Lerebours’ name.
label: Description
content: Ref: J. T. Silbermann, “Rapport fait à l’Académie Royale des Sciences sur un nouvel heliostat,” <i>Annales de Chimie et de Physique</i> 10 (1844): 298-306.
label: Description
content: Lerebours et Secretan, <i>Catalogue et Prix des Instruments d’Optique, de Physique, de Chemie, de Mathematiques, d’Astronomie et de Marine</i> (Paris, 1853), pp. 39.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: France: Île-de-France, Paris
topic: label: Subject
content: Science & Scientific Instruments
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1990.0539.54
label: catalog number
content: 1990.0539.54
label: accession number
content: 1990.0539
objectType: label: Object Name
content: heliostat
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: metal, brass (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: wood (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: average spatial: 12 1/2 in x 6 in; 31.75 cm x 15.24 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 15 1/2 in x 11 1/2 in x 11 in; 39.37 cm x 29.21 cm x 27.94 cm