Porter Garden Telescope
date: label: date made
content: after 1923-09-25
name: label: maker
content: Jones & Lamson Machine Co.
label: maker
content: Brashear, John A.
notes: label: Description
content: A skillful blending of art and science, the Porter Garden Telescope is a 6-inch f/4 Newtonian reflector cast in solid statuary bronze that can also serve as a sundial and as an elegant piece of domestic garden furniture. The slender blade of overlapping leaves holds the primary mirror, the prism, and the eyepiece in alignment. A bowl of lotus leaves embraces the mirror and a pair of cylindrical flowers forms the slow motion controls. The base is embellished with the names of Galileo, Kepler, and Newton. When not in use, the optical elements could be removed and taken indoors.
label: Description
content: Russell Porter, an Arctic explorer and Boston architect, designed the Garden Telescope. John A. Brashear provided the eyepieces and prisms. Wilbur Perry, an early member of Stellafane, figured the mirrors.
label: Description
content: This example is marked "The Porter Garden Telescope built and sold by Jones & Lamson Machine Co. Springfield Vermont. -U-S-A- / No. 49 / US Patent 1468973 Sept. 25, 1923." Christian La Roche acquired it in the early 1930s and gave it to the Smithsonian in 1992.
label: Description
content: The Garden Telescope has a split-ring equatorial mount. Porter developed this design in 1918 and later proposed it for the large telescope on Mt. Palomar. John Pierce, a member of the Springfield Telescope Makers, suggested "that the 200-inch mount as constructed is simply a glorified 'Garden Telescope,' with a lattice tube instead of the bar which supports the prism and ocular in the garden telescope."
label: Description
content: We suspect that fewer than 100 Garden Telescopes were ever made. This commercial failure can be partially attributed to cost. With a price tag ranging from $400 to $500, it was beyond the means of most potential buyers.
label: Description
content: Ref: John Tracy Spaight, "The Porter Garden Telescope," <i>Rittenhouse</i> 6 (1992): 97-102.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Vermont, Springfield
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
label: See more items in
content: Science & Mathematics
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Christian La Roche
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1992.0242.01
label: catalog number
content: 1992.0242.01
label: accession number
content: 1992.0242
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Porter Garden Telelescope (mount)
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: statuary bronze (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: brass (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 88 cm x 31.5 cm x 31.7 cm; 34 21/32 in x 12 13/32 in x 12 15/32 in
label: Measurements
content: overall: 28 in x 12 1/2 in x 24 in; 71.12 cm x 31.75 cm x 60.96 cm