Cooke Telescope Tales - observatory and telescope for sale in Liverpool in 1885

 Pall Mall Gazette, Friday 2^nd January 1885 

 

ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY WITH  TELESCOPE AND APPOINTMENTS COMPLETE.

 

To be SOLD, a bargain, on account of the owner's eyesight, an excellent Equatorial-mounted  TELESCOPE by Cooke, 4.5 inch diam.; Dawe's solar and numerous other eyepieces, micrometer, induction  coil and battery, automatic and star spectroscopes, spark condenser, clock by Cooke, barometer 7-10  diam., observing chair, complete sets of the memoirs and monthly notice's of the R.A.S., Astronomical Register and Observatory,  with indexes, and a number of other astronautical works, all in the best possible condition. The above presents a very rate opportunity  to astronomical students

 

Address  "Telescope," care of Lee and Nightingale, Advertising Agents,  Liverpool.

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Cooke Telescope Tales - Sunderland Scientific Exhibition 1882

 Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette Friday 17^th February 1882

 The Sunderland Scientific and Industrial Exhibition 

The exhibition will be held at the Skating Rink Hudson Road and included Mr John G Allison of the Old Rectory Monkwearmouth, who exhibited a portable telescope which will be found worthy of our astronomical students.

 The object glass in 4 inches in diameter and 5 feet focal length withy polished brass tube and finder attached. It has 4 eyepieces powers from 80 to 300 and is fixed on a strong polished walnut tripod stand. 

I believe this the telescope purchased by John G Allison in 1866 from Thomas Cooke and Sons when Mr Allison was living at 12 Cumberland Row Newcastle.

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Cooke Telescope Tales - John Dansken and the Patrickhill Observatory

John Dansken who was born in Glasgow in 1836 was by profession a surveyor and an enthusiastic amateur astronomer  who built an observatory at his home in Patrickhill, Glasgow which included a 5 inch telescope by Thomas Cooke of York, there was also a larger 13 inch reflector made by D Hunter of Lanark. 

A number of smaller instruments were also housed there including telescopes by Wray and Dollond. He also had one of the finest astronomical libraries in the West of Scotland. John Dansken died in 1905.

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Cooke Telescope Tales - TW Backhouse and comet Swift 1892

TW Backhouse of Sunderland using his 4.5 inch Thomas Cooke & Sons telescope reports on comet Swift 1892. He says that there appeared to be little notice of this comet. Backhouse said that he saw the comet on April 26^th 1892 through a miniature spectroscope on his Cooke telescope. Although the best views of the comet so far were obtained on April 29^th when although faint it was visible to the naked eye. The comet had a tail 11 degrees long. On April 30^th the head of the comet was about 4^th magnitude and was seen between mu and lambda Pegasus.

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A little ramble through 19th century astronomy - Uranus and Neptune in 1875

 Academy, Saturday 16^th October 1875

The Satellites of Uranus and Neptune.— Since the completion of the great Washington refractor of twenty-six inches’ aperture, it has been devoted to the observation of these objects, which are too faint for any but the very largest telescopes. Professor Newcomb, who made the micrometer measures, has discussed them in an appendix to the Washington Observations, arriving at the conclusion that the orbits of these satellites are all sensibly circular (being certainly less eccentric than those of the planets of our system), and that those of the Uranian system lie in one plane.

Only one satellite to Neptune has been detected, though a second was repeatedly looked for, and no trace of any satellites exterior to the four known members of the Uranian system has been seen, though Sir W. Herschel concluded there were six. From the excessive faintness of the four satellites of Uranus, Professor Newcomb considers that their masses can hardly exceed 1/15,000  of that of the planet, so that their mutual perturbations would be insensible, while the sun’s disturbing  effect is exceedingly small, and thus the problem of determining their motions becomes comparatively simple.

The chief importance of this problem is that it gives the masses of Uranus and Neptune more accurately than any other method, all that is required for this purpose being to know the greatest apparent distance of one of the satellites from its primary and the period of revolution. In this way Professor Newcomb finds the mass of Uranus to be 1/ 22,600  of that of the sun, a result which is probably true within 1/200 part , while the mass of Neptune is 1/19,400 .One element of uncertainty in these results is the chromatic aberration of the eye-piece used n 1873, the webs being illuminated by red light, while that of the satellites is greenish yellow, so that the web is not really on the satellite when it appears to be. The effect of this is that there is a difficulty in converting the measured distance into seconds of arc. Professor Newcomb has not been able to detect any markings on Uranus and can therefore form no conclusion as to the period of rotation, which is a matter of some interest.

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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.

Cooke Telescope Tales - telescope for Brighton in 1857

  In 1857 Charles Howell (1783-1867) of Hove, Brighton purchased a 6.25 inch Thomas Cooke of York telescope, it was similar in design to the one that was exhibited at the Paris Exhibition in 1855.

 The telescope would be placed into an observatory, which I believe was built locally and not a Cooke observatory. Later after 1864 he also purchased a 7.5 inch Thomas Cooke & Sons telescope. It was this telescope that Mr Fry used to photograph the Moon with in 1865. This telescope was housed in a separate observatory and again this observatory appears to be locally made. 

He was also interested in double stars and planets, and because of his age he often let his many friends in the Brighton area use his telescopes.

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