Objective Lens
date: label: date made
content: 1874
name: label: maker
content: Alvan Clark & Sons
notes: label: Description
content: In an effort to get a better fix on the distance between the Earth and the Sun, the United States sponsored eight parties to observe the 1874 transit of Venus across the face of the sun, and equipped each with apparatus made by Alvan Clark & Sons. This 5-inch aperture lens in a brass cell was the objective for one of the eight equatorial refractors. The “VIII Nagasaki 1 / Fort Selden N.M.” inscription scratched on the cell indicates that this was used at Nagasaki in 1874, and Cerro Roblero (a site near Fort Selden, an Army post in what is now New Mexico) during the transit of Venus of 1882.
label: Description
content: Ref: Simon Newcomb, ed., <i>Observations of the Transit of Venus, December 8-9, 1874</i> (Washington, D.C., 1880), p. 16.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Massachusetts, Cambridgeport
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: 2005.3085.06
label: catalog number
content: 2005.3085.06
label: nonaccession number
content: 2005.3085
objectType: label: Object Name
content: telescope objective lens
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 1 1/2 in x 5 3/4 in; 3.81 cm x 14.605 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 1 5/8 in x 6 in; 4.1275 cm x 15.24 cm