Refracting Telescope
date: label: date made
content: 1915
name: label: maker
content: Clark, Alvan
label: maker
content: Alvan Clark & Sons
notes: label: Description
content: Refracting telescope with a 3½ -inch an achromatic objective, equatorial mount, nickel-plated tube, and wooden tripod. The inscription on the faceplate reads “The Alvan Clark & Sons Corp’s, Cambridgeport, Mass.” This form was introduced around 1915 (replacing a similar signature, but with date, that had been used since the incorporation of the firm in 1901).
label: Description
content: The number “438” and the letter “A” are scratched on both elements of the objective lens. This number does not appear in the ledger kept by Carl Axel Robert Lundin, the skilled Swedish optician and mechanician who spent 41 years with the firm, but the ledger indicates that “439” was sold in 1915. The “PAT. JAN 3, 1899”on the telescope mount refers to Lundin’s patent (#617108) for a simple and compact equatorial mount.
label: Description
content: The Smithsonian purchased this telescope from Henry E. Paul, an accomplished amateur astronomer in Norwich, New York.
label: Description
content: Ref: Deborah Warner and Robert Ariail, <i>Alvan Clark & Sons. Artists in Optics</i> (Richmond, 1995), pp. 140-141.
label: Description
content: Carl A. R. Lundin, “Telescopic Mounting,” U.S. Patent 617,108 (Jan. 3, 1899).
label: Description
content: “Carl A. R. Lundin Dead,” New York Times (Nov. 29, 1915), p. 11.
label: Description
content: Henry E. Paul, <i>Outer Space Photography</i> (Garden City, N.Y., 1960).
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Massachusetts, Cambridge
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
label: See more items in
content: Science & Mathematics
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PH.320241A
label: accession number
content: 241909
label: catalog number
content: 320241
label: catalog number
content: 320241A
objectType: label: Object Name
content: telescope, refracting
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 4 1/2 in x 6 in x 5 in; 11.43 cm x 15.24 cm x 12.7 cm