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The great nineteenth century refractors

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Abstract

The first modern refractor was built in 1824 by Fraunhofer; its diameter was 23 cm. The sizes of the largest refractors grew linearly with time, culminating in the 102-cm Yerkes telescope (1897) and the 125-cm horizontal refractor with siderostat for the 1900 Universal Exhibition in Paris. This was the end of the giants; however long-focus photographic or visual refractors with diameters 60-70 cm were still being constructed until 1972. In parallel, many short-focus, wide field astrographs were built after 1893. We recall the scientific uses of the large refractors, and discuss why these cumbersome and expensive instruments were not dethroned by the silvered-glass reflecting telescopes until late, in spite of the advantages of the latter.

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Notes

  1. See for an image [1, p. 225]

  2. For a contemporary description (in French, with figure) see [10]

  3. Paul (1848-1905) and Prosper (1849-1903) Henry always worked together.

  4. (For details on this instrument see [11, 12])

  5. See http://astro.uchicago.edu/yerkes/history.html

  6. Fuentès [17], with a picture of the telescope.

  7. Scholl [18], with a photograph.

  8. For a description see [19, 20]. Pictures of these instruments can be found easily through google.

  9. Launay [21]. Also [22, 23], with a picture.

  10. For details, see [24].

  11. Ritchey [26]; cited by King, op. cit., p. 267.

  12. For the early development of reflecting telescopes in the USA, see [27]

  13. Gascoigne, op. cit., p. 106.

  14. Tobin, op. cit., p. 263.

  15. Mouchez [29]. He was obviously trying to find excuses for the bad quality of the 120-cm reflector of the Observatory, but he is nevertheless right.

  16. Cited by King, op. cit., p. 246.

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  1. LERMA, Observatoire de Paris, 61 Av. de l’Observatoire, 75014, Paris, France

    James Lequeux

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Acknowledgements Publications available through asdwww.harvard.edu are [3, 5–9, 13, 25, 27], that through gallica2.bnf.fr is [20] and those through cnum.cnam.fr are [10, 18, 19, 21, 23, 28].

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Lequeux, J. The great nineteenth century refractors. Exp Astron 25, 43–61 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10686-009-9154-9

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