Telescope
date: label: date made
content: 1896
name: label: maker
content: Brashear, John A.
notes: label: Description
content: Telescope with a 4-inch aperture achromatic objective, a 54-inch brass tube, a nickel-plated finder scope, a wooden tripod, and a cast-iron equatorial mount of the so-called “tombstone” form. The telescope has no clock or circles, but it does have a declination arc that extends from 0 to 60 degrees. A plate on the mount reads: “J. A. BRASHEAR / ALLEGHENY, PA. / 304.” The address, serial number, and form indicate that the telescope was made in the 1890s.
label: Description
content: John A. Brashear was a self-taught optician and mechanic who, with the financial support of William Thaw, made instruments for astronomy and astrophysics. Brashear established a small workshop behind his house in 1881. In 1886 he moved to a larger facility in Allegheny, a town that would be annexed by Pittsburgh in 1907.
label: Description
content: In 1896, Brashear sent this telescope to Henry Curwen Lord, professor of astronomy at Ohio State University in Columbus, and director of the newly established Emerson McMillan Observatory. And he wrote, in an accompanying letter: “I make it an invariable rule to test all telescopes before they leave us. We like to be our own severest critics. The glass is a beauty and your people should get good use from it.”
label: Description
content: The telescope eventually came into the hands of Edward Stansbury Wilson, a newspaper editor who spoke at the opening of the Emerson McMillan Observatory. An enthusiastic advocate of amateur astronomy, Wilson argued for the value of appreciating the glory and grandeur of the universe. His grandson, John E. Ruedy, gave the telescope to the Smithsonian in 1983.
label: Description
content: According to tradition, Brashear began by making achromatic objectives with the crown element in front of the flint. Around 1887, following the advice of Charles S. Hastings, an optical physicist at The Johns Hopkins University, he began making flint-forward objectives. This telescope is probably of that sort.
label: Description
content: Ref: John A. Brashear, <i>John A. Brashear. Autobiography of a Man Who Loved the Stars</i> (Boston, 1925).
label: Description
content: Letter from John A. Brashear to H. C. Lord (Oct. 9, 1896) in NMAH accession file.
label: Description
content: Edward S. Wilson, <i>Keynotes of Education</i> (Cincinnati, 1898).
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Pennsylvania, Allegheny
topic: label: Subject
content: Astronomy
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: John E. Ruedy
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1983.0579.01
label: accession number
content: 1983.0579
label: catalog number
content: 83.579.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: telescope, refracting
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: brass (overall material)