Telescope
date: label: date made
content: 1863
name: label: used at
content: Vassar College
label: user
content: Mitchell, Maria
label: maker
content: Fitz, Jr., Henry
label: maker
content: Fitz, Harry
label: maker
content: Clark, Alvan
label: maker
content: Warner & Swasey Company
notes: label: Description
content: Vassar College was established as a school for women at Poughkeepsie, N.Y., in 1861. Like many other American colleges of the period, it had a well-equipped astronomical observatory. Its primary telescope, an equatorial refractor of 12½ inches aperture, was made by Henry Fitz, Jr., America’s first successful commercial telescope maker. Its first professor of astronomy was Maria Mitchell, America’s first woman astronomer and first woman scientist of note. In the mid-1860s, Mitchell asked Alvan Clark to rework the large objective lens and also the drive mechanism. Warner & Swasey built a new mount in the 1880s. Vassar donated this historic telescope to the Smithsonian in 1963.
label: Description
content: Ref: Deborah Warner and Robert Ariail, <i>Alvan Clark & Sons. Artists in Optics</i> (Richmond, 1995), pp. 170-173.
topic: label: Subject
content: Astronomy
label: Subject
content: Education
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: Vassar College
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PH.323566.1
label: catalog number
content: 323566
label: accession number
content: 248757
objectType: label: Object Name
content: telescope (objective)
label: Object Name
content: telescope
label: Object Name
content: telescope, refracting
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: walnut veneer (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: brass (polar circle material)
label: Physical Description
content: brass (eyepiece material)
label: Physical Description
content: glass (eyepiece material)
label: Physical Description
content: mahogany (case material)
label: Physical Description
content: leather (seat material)