Cooke Telescope Tales - 9 inch telescope for Sir William Keith Murray in 1858

On December 11^th 1858 Sir William Keith Murray (1801-1861) of Ochertyre  near Crieff in Scotland purchased a 9 inch telescope from Thomas Cooke of York. The telescope was massive and had a tube that was 13 feet long and was mounted on a stone pier 9 feet and 3 inches tall. Up until this point in time it was the largest telescope that Cooke had constructed and it was also at the time the largest refractor in Scotland.

 The weather conditions were often poor at the location of the observatory and Murray was only able to use the Cooke for a short period before his death in 1861. Following his death the telescope was offered for sale unfortunately with no initial interest.

 In 1863 a number of gentlemen raised £1,120 ( today this would be £173,534) to purchase the telescope for the observatory at Glasgow University. It was sited at the Horselethill Observatory and used there until 1939 when the building was demolished. The 9 inch was always referred to as the 9 inch Ochertyre Telescope.

Following the demolition of the Horselethill Observatory a new student observatory was built in the University Gardens to house the 9 in Cooke. 

This was closed in 1969 after which I don’t know  what happened to the 9 inch Cooke Ochtertyre Telescope.

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A little ramble through 19th century astronomy - Suicide at Observatory House in 1892

Hull Daily Mail Wednesday 14^th September 1892

 

PREMEDITATED SUICIDE

 

George Digby Cole, valet to a gentleman named Herschell, who resides at Observatory House, in the Windsor Road Slough, having had disagreement with his master, went on Monday afternoon to a chemist, and, pretending that required the drug for the purpose of poisoning a dog, obtained some prussic acid. He then proceeded to the house of his former employer, and, after using some improper language, took out the bottle and swallowed its poisonous contents. The man walked the room for few moments screaming and shouting in his death agonies till he fell exhausted to the floor.

 

A surgeon attended as speedily as possible, and administered an emetic but he expired. It is said that Cole, who was considered rather an eccentric person, was walking shortly before he committed suicide with an undertaker, whom he asked to measure him for a coffin when he was dead.

 

MY NOTE

 

I am not sure which member of the Herschell family was living at Observatory House at this time.

 

Pussic acid is Hydrogen Cyanide

A little ramble through Eridanus the River

Eridanus is the 6^th largest constellation in the sky, but it is often overlooked due to the lack of bright stars. Or at least certainly from the northern hemisphere. Its brightest star Achernar is not visible from the UK. The constellations starts close to the bright star Rigel in Orion and then meanders south and below the horizon. 

To the Greeks Eridanus was sometimes called the River of Orion due its closeness to Rigel. It is often associated with the river into which Phaethon fell after trying to use the chariot of his father, the sun god. Some Greeks also just referred to it as the river.

It was also seen as a river by the Euphratean astronomers who used the name of Erib-me-gali.

Keeping up this theme of a river the Arab astronomers called this constellation Al Nahr which again means the river.

The brightest star in Eridanus is alpha or Achernar which in Arabic is Al Anir al Nahr or the End of the River. An interesting point to note is that this name was first given to the star theta. This was because it was the southernmost bright star to be seen from Greece. When European explorers travelled to the southern hemisphere, they saw a bright star that could not be seen from Europe.

In 1603 the German astronomer Johannes Bayer extended the length of Eridanus and named it Achernar the End of the river. The star theta was renamed Acamar which in Arabic means the Root.

Achernar is a B class star with a magnitude of 0.5 and is the 9th brightest star in the sky, Achernar is139 light years away. We normally think of a star as a sphere of hot spinning gas but Achernar spins so quickly that it is pushed out of shape, so it appears more like an oblate spheroid. It is quite possibly the least known spherical star in our galaxy. It is not a single star it has a companion star. Achernar is around 10 times the diameter bigger than our Sun. The average temperature is about 15,000 degrees much hotter than the Sun; however, this varies because at the poles it is 17,000 degrees while at the equator its 12,000 degrees.

Theta or Acamar has a magnitude of 2.9 and is 164 light years away. Acamar is a double star, and both stars are A class stars indicating they are hotter than our Sun.

Beta or as it is known to the Arab astronomers as Cursa which means The chair or the Footstall of the Central One is located just above the bright star Rigel in the constellation of Orion. To the Chinese this was called Yuh Tsing or The Golden well. It has a magnitude of 2.8 and is an A class star lying  90 light years away.

Gamma was known to the Arab astronomers as either Zaurac or Zaurak which means the Bright Star of the Boat. The star is a red M class giant star around 192 light years away and has a magnitude or brightness of 2.9. As it is an M class star it will be cooler than the Sun with a surface temperature of about 3,500 degrees compared to the 5,800 degrees of the Sun.

 Gamma or Azha as it was known to the Arab astronomer Al Sufi was chief among the stars of the Ostrich’s Nest which the word Azha means. Its an K class star again cooler than the Sun with a magnitude of 3.9 and is 137 light years away.

There are no bright deep sky objects to mention.

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A little ramble through 19th century astronomy - Bath Observatory destroyed by fire in 1867

 Devizes and Wiltshire Gazette Thursday 24^th January 1867.

 

 Destruction of an Observatory. 

—On Sunday last the observatory connected with St. Gregory's College, Downside, near Bath, was totally destroyed by fire. It originated apparently in the heating apparatus, which kindled the joists of the ground floor; the flames, which caught some stuffed birds and other natural history specimens in the museum kept in the lower room, were rapidly communicated to the equatorial room above, in which was a magnificent refracting telescope of 15 inches diameter and 20 feet focal length. 

The observing stages formed capital fuel for the fire, and in less than hour the whole was one mass of flame, leaving no possibility of rescuing anything. The loss of the glass and astronomical plant attached to the telescope is the more unfortunate as the observatory had only just been placed in full working order. The loss to the college of the antiquities, curiosities, and natural history collections in the museum cannot be estimated, for they contained many unique and invaluable specimens, and were the result of fifty years' accumulation.

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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 - Mr Maw and his two Cooke telescopes

William Henry Maw (1836 – 1924) was born in Scarborough on December 6^th 1836, when he was growing up he was friends with the sons of Dr Harland, who would become the founders of the Harland & Wolf ship builders. Both his parents died when he was in his teens, without influences and an advantage of a higher education he was still able to raise himself to become a leading authority in the fields of mechanics and engineering. 

His leisure time was however devoted to astronomy. In Kensington, London in 1887 he built an observatory for his 6 inch Cooke telescope which he used to study the Moon. Later from 1897 when he lived in Surrey he built an observatory for a larger 8 inch Cooke  telescope. This had originally been owned by the Rev R W Dawes and would later be located at the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge and known as the Thorrowgood Telescope.

 W H Maw made extensive observations of double stars using both Cooke telescopes. In particular the double stars from the Struve catalogue. His observations were considered to be very accurate. Maw was a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and one of the founders of the British Astronomical Society.   

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A little ramble through 19th century astronomy - Moses Holden and the comet of 1840

  Blackburn Standard Wednesday 4^th March 1840 

 

THE COMET 

To the Editor of the Blackburn Standard.

 

 Sir, —Will you have the goodness to insert in the Standard the following account of a comet which is now seen: it is written by Mr. Moses Holden, whose lectures many of your readers will remember, and appeared in the Preston papers of last Saturday:-

 

 " A second Comet has appeared this year, although the month of February is not yet out. This second is very small, and can only be seen with a good telescope. I saw it on the 23rd, it was little above the girdle of Andromeda, and did not look half large as the Nebula in that girdle, nor half as large as Encke's Comet. Its movement for the week along the girdle of Andromeda, as it passes the stars, is as follows,

 

Feb 1840  29    28     27    26    25    24   23

                  o       o       o     o      o      o     o   Comet.

                                                           Nu*            

                   Beta *                Mu*              0 Nebula

 

An equatorial telescope turned to right ascension, in time 1 hour and 15 minutes, and declination 35 deg,  5 min., will be near the place, and with a Comet eye-piece would soon find it this evening.

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