Cooke Telescope Tales - a number of telescopes for London

Edmund Wheeler a lecturer (I don’t know in which subject) of London in 1857 purchased a number of telescopes from Thomas Cooke & Sons. 

In February a 2.75 inch was brought, while in May a 4 inch engraved ‘Edmund Wheeler London’ and finally in September a 4 inch telescope on a plain equatorial stand with brass finder, 4 astronomical eyepieces and a sun prism. The cost of this telescope was £40. 

In 1864 the 4 inch which was not engraved was being sold for £40. This was the same price that the telescope was brought for.

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The Astronomy Show on Drystone Radio

 Join me, Martin Lunn MBE every Monday evening from 7.00 pm-9.00 pm on the award-winning Astronomy Show on Drystone Radio, probably the only regular astronomy show on any radio station in the country. 

I will take my weekly look at the night sky and look at all the latest news in astronomy. There will be the astronomical anniversaries this week plus the latest news from the astronomical societies in the north of England.

The Astronomy Show every Monday evening only on Drystone Radio live online at www.drystoneradio.com DAB radio in Bradford and East Lancashire, or 102 and 103.5 FM and can also be heard later on the Drystone Radio Podcast.

A little ramble through astronomy in Yorkshire - Thornborough Henge

 We now travel back in time not this time in millions but in thousands of years to around 3,500 BCE (Before Christian Era) to discover one of the most important ancient sites in Britain, this is the Thornborough Henges. They are located near the village of Thornborough which is in the Hambleton district of North Yorkshire near to Bedale. The henges consist of a series of three circular mounds with ditches and banks that were probably in use for over a thousand years. This site is often referred to as the ‘Stonehenge of the North’.

Thornborough Henge is the world’s only triple henge with the length of the three circles covering a distance of about one mile.  The henges are aligned northwest to southeast and laid out at approximately 550m apart.  All are of similar size and shape, have a diameter between 240 and 275 metres, and stand some three meters in height. We cannot be sure why it was built some astro archaeologists think that Thornborough may have been a pilgrimage centre where people sought spiritual salvation and that it served an economic and social needs however there does appears to be a definite astronomical connection.

The Thornborough Henges align with one of the most famous star patterns in the sky, Orion’s Belt.  The henges do not form a straight line but instead were intentionally shaped like a ‘dog leg’ to reflect the shape that the stars of Orion’s belt form in the sky. The constellation of Orion is very well known and is one of the two main signposts in the sky which help astronomers to find their way around while learning the positions of the stars in the night sky. The other is the Plough or Big Dipper as the Americans prefer to call it. The Plough is part of the constellation of Ursa Major the Great Bear, and while the Plough is visible all year around while in Britain Orion can only be seen in the winter sky.

Orion is one of 88 constellations recognised today be astronomers today. These are just like giant pictures in the sky and if you can find them it is possible to start reading the stories they are telling us. Of these 48 were designed by the Greeks and therefore by convention we tend to use the Greek myth and legends attached to them. Most other civilisations had their own versions of the ones we use here in the west. The other 40 constellations were added from the sixteenth century onwards by astronomers filling in the gaps between the main star groups in the northern hemisphere. When European explorers travelled into the southern hemisphere, they saw stars that cannot be seen in Europe so created a series of constellation in the southern sky. Many of these are depictions of what were at the time newly invented scientific instruments. This explains why in the southern hemisphere we see constellations such as Telescopium the Telescope and Microscopium the Microscope. The vast majority of these modern constellations both in the northern and southern hemispheres are comprised of faint and obscure stars. 

Orion on the other hand is a magnificent constellation easily recognised by four bright stars that form a large rectangle in the sky inside which are the three stars that form Orion’s Belt. The top left-hand star of the rectangle is the famous red star Betelgeux which is often called Beetlejuice!  As we look at the belt stars from left to right they are Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka.  The stars names may seem a little different to us this is because they are Arabic. When we translate the stars of Orion’s belt into English, we discover that Alnitak means The Girdle, Alnilam the String of Pearls and Mintaka is the Belt.

This same astronomical alignment can be found in the great pyramids in Egypt, but the Thonrborough Henges are about 1,000 years earlier than the Egyptian pyramids. This could be the first known monument to align with the constellation of Orion. Was this co- incidence that the people of Yorkshire and those in Egypt created the same pattern on the ground or maybe people travelled around the world thousands of years ago exchanging thoughts, ideas and customs? 

The structures of the henges were aligned so its western end pointed towards the mid-winter setting of Orion which also meant that the eastern end aligned towards the midsummer solstice.

Today we talk about light pollution and how difficult it is for people who live in cities to see the stars properly.  We can be certain that the night skies were much darker when the henges were constructed over 5,000 years ago, there would be no light pollution at all. Today Orion is still an amazingly wonderful constellation to look at but with darker skies it must have looked even more impressive, and this perhaps is one of the reasons why they had such a fascination for this one particular group of stars.

Today, all three of the Thornborough Henges, as well as the land connecting them together, are listed as Scheduled Ancient Monuments.

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Cooke Telescope Tales - comet seen from Gibraltar in 1860

 Colonel De Rottenburg wrote in a letter dated June 24^th, 1860, from Gibraltar. “I observed a brilliant comet in the constellation of Auriga this evening, a line from beta through a Geminorum continued about three times their distance passed through its nucleus. 

It was easily seen with the naked eye; the nucleus was a little less brilliant than Castor. Its altitude above the western horizon about equal to that of Venus at the same time. 

I turned my 6 feet equatorial of 4.5 inches aperture made by Messrs Thomas Cooke & Sons of York on the comet. 

It has a bifid tail, very like that of the year 1846 as shown in Keith Johnsone’s Atlas of Astronomy which is edited by Mr Hind. I used powers of 26, 50 and 100 on the comet; the nucleus has a very sensible disk. It bore the powers of 100 very well; one portion of the tail is much longer than the other, the south preceding being the longer. 

With 100 power the nucleus was situated within the nebulosity, and the nebulosity was more arched and prominent on the south preceding part. It was first seen by a gentleman here on Saturday evening 23^rd June.

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A little ramble through 19th century astronomy - Meteors in 1869,1870 and 1871

 Academy, Saturday 7^th March 1874 

When Captain Tupman, R.M.A. communicated to the Royal Astronomical Society the results of his observations of meteors during the three years 1869, 1870, and 1871, spent in a cruise in the Mediterranean, the wish was very generally expressed that the observations themselves should be published. This has now been done by the liberality of the British Association, and the details of 2,000 meteor tracks observed are made available for further discussion at any future time. Perhaps the most interesting point is that out of 102 radiants, corresponding to meteor streams observed by Captain Tupman, no less that 79 are identical with those determined by previous observers, leading to the conclusion that the catalogue of these strange streams of small bodies is now nearly complete. This valuable mass of observations shows what can be done, even without instrumental means, provided one object be kept steadily in view.

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A little ramble through Hercules

 One of the oldest sky figures Hercules  is in a very confusing part of the sky there are no bright marker stars but essentially it is made up of a quadrilateral of stars between Vega and Corona Borealis. Hercules is the 5th largest constellation and because of the legends associated with Hercules it should be a very prominent constellation sadly its not.

Hercules was not known by this name to the early Greek astronomers, but he was seen as the Phantom or Kneeling One. Around 700 BCE his 12 labours were seen to refer to the Sun’s journey through the 12 signs of the zodiac. Around 500 BCE Hercules was introduced in the heavens as a member of the crew of the Argo.  It was only around 200 BCE that the Greek astronomer Eratosthenes is said to have described the Hercules and his 12 labours that we recognise today.

The image we see today of Hercules kneeling and holding a club dates to the Farnese Globe which was made around 150 CE and shows Atlas holding a celestial globe. Although it probably was a copy of an earlier piece of work produced in Greece around 150 BCE by Hipparchus..

In ancient Phoenicia the constellation was said to represent the great sea god Melkarth.

The Arab astronomers saw Hercules as either Al Rakis the Dancer or Al Jathiyy a’la Rukbataihi the One who Kneels on Both Knees.

The brightest star alpha is known by it Arabic name as Ras Algethi of The Kneeler’s Head. Nomadic Arabs knew is as Al Kalb al Ra I, The Shepherd’ s Dog.  

The Chinese knew the star as Ti Tso or the Emperor’s Seat.

Ras Algethi is a semi regular variable star varying in brightness between magnitude 2.7-4.0 these changes can be followed with the naked eye in a period of between 80-140 days. It is a M red supergiant star lying at a distance of 360 light years.  

Beta or Korneforos which means ‘Club Bearer’ this term is often given to the whole figure of Hercules. The star lies at a distance of 139 light years. The star is a G giant star and has a magnitude of 2.8.

To the Chinese this star was Ho Chung which means in the River.

Nova 1934 discovered by English amateur JPM Prentice on December 13th, 1934, at mag 3.0 and reached its peak brightness on December 22nd, 1934, at mag 1.5. It remained visible to the naked eye for several months.

There are two Messier objects to look for in Hercules.  Located below the star eta is Messier 13 which is probably the finest globular cluster in the northern hemisphere. Globular Clusters are groups of very old stars. M13 can just be seen with the naked eye if the sky is very clear when it is high up in the summer months. It is very easy to find in binoculars M13 has a magnitude 5.8 and was discovered in 1764

M13 contains anywhere from 300,000 to 500,000 stars spread out over 140 light years. It is relatively close to us at around 23,000 light years

M13 is sometimes called the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules If you have a small telescope M13 is fantastic to look at. It is always a target for astro- photographers.

Messier 92

A globular cluster only slightly inferior to M13, Messier 92 discovered in 1781 it lies at a distance of 26,700 light years magnitude 6.3. It contains about 330,000 stars. You will need at least a pair of binoculars to see M92

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Cooke Telescope Tales - telescope for Chester in 1865

 In 1865 Dr William Murray Dobie of Kings Buildings, Chester purchased a 6inch Telescope from Thomas Cooke &Sons. This telescope cost £120 

Dr Dobie was advertising for sale a 5.5 inch telescope that he had brought from Cookes in 1863. I have no idea why he was replacing this telescope as he described it as nearly new, it was only 2 years old and he described it as being of the first rate. He was selling this Cooke telescope for 65 guineas without its stand.

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