Telescope
date: label: Date made
content: ca. 1769
label: Date made
content: 1768-1769
name: label: maker
content: Nairne, Edward
notes: label: Description
content: Samuel Williams (1743-1817), Harvard graduate, minister and, for several years, the Hollis Professor at Harvard, used this telescope to observe the most important astronomical event of the eighteenth century: the 1769 Transit of Venus across the face of the sun. He also used it to observe several lunar eclipses and one partial solar eclipse in the 1770s.
label: Description
content: The "Nairne London 1.5/209 = 480" inscription on the tube indicates that this telescope was made by Edward Nairne (1726-1806). It also indicates that it has a focal length of 1.5 feet and was the 209th Nairne instrument of this size and the 480th Nairne telescope overall. A correlation of serial numbers and dates indicates that this example was made in 1768 or 1769.
label: Description
content: Ref: Samuel Williams, "An Account of the Transit of Venus over the June, June 3d, 1769, as observed at Newbury, in Massachusetts," <i>Transactions of the American Philosophical Society</i> 2 (1786): 246-251.
label: Description
content: Williams, "Astronomical Observations made in the State of Massachusetts," <i>Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences</i> 1 (1785): 81-124, on 86.
label: Description
content: Gerard l'E. Turner, "The Number Code on Reflecting Telescopes by Nairne and Blunt," <i>Journal for the History of Astronomy</i> 10 (1979): 177-184.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
label: Location
content: Currently not on view (cover; lense; lense discs; threaded ring to lense)
place: label: place made
content: United Kingdom: England, London
topic: label: Subject
content: Science & Scientific Instruments
label: Subject
content: Revolutionary War
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: 2007.0070.01
label: catalog number
content: 2007.0070.01
label: accession number
content: 2007.0070
objectType: label: Object Name
content: telescope
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: metal, brass (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: tube: 12 in x 18 in x 9 in x 2 in; 30.48 cm x 45.72 cm x 22.86 cm x 5.08 cm