From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Here is a list of the largest optical refracting telescopes sorted by lens diameter and year of construction.
The largest refractor ever constructed was French: an instrument sporting two interchangeable objective lenses (for visual and photographic use respectively) 1.25 m (49.2 in) in diameter, with a focal length of 57 m (187 ft). It was on display at the 1905 Paris Exposition. Due to the extreme focal length it was stationary. The telescope was aimed with the aid of a Foucault siderostat, a movable plane mirror 2 m (6.56 feet) in diameter, mounted in a large cast-iron frame. The horizontal steel tube was 60 m (197 feet) long; for focusing, the telescope’s eyepiece/plate end could be shifted five feet on rails. With the lowest power—500x—the field of view was 3 arc minutes. Due to its unfortunate location—right within the metropolis—and trouble with the siderostat, the results were poor and not suited for scientific use. When the year-long exposition was over, its builders were unable to sell it. It was ultimately broken up for scrap; the lenses are still stored away at the Paris Observatory.
| Observatory | Lens diameter | Focal length | Built | Comments
|
Paris 1900 Exposition
(Paris, France) | 1.25 m | 57 m | 1900 | Fixed lens, total failure, scrapped.
|
Yerkes Observatory
(Williams Bay, Wisconsin, USA) | 1.02 m | 19.4 m | 1897 |
|
Swedish Solar Telescope
(Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, La Palma) | 1 m | 15 m | 2002 | Adaptive optics corrected refractor telescope
|
Lick Observatory
(Mount Hamilton (California), USA) | 0.91 m | 17.6 m | 1888 |
|
Paris Observatory
(Meudon, France) | 0.83 m + 0.62 m | 16.2 m | 1891 | Double telescope
|
Astrophysical Observatory Potsdam
(Potsdam, Germany) | 0.80 m + 0.50 m | 12.0 m | 1899 | Double telescope
|
Côte d'Azur Observatory
(Nice, France) | 0.76 m | 17.9 m | 1887 |
|
Allegheny Observatory
(Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA) | 0.76 m | 14.1 m | 1914 |
|
Royal Greenwich Observatory
(Greenwich, London, England) | 0.71 m | 8.5 m | 1894 |
|
Vienna Observatory
(Vienna, Austria) | 0.69 m | 10.5 m | 1878 |
|
Archenhold Observatory
(Berlin, Germany) | 0.68 m | 21 m | 1896 |
|
McCormick Observatory
(Charlottesville, Virginia, USA) | 0.67 m | 9.9 m | 1883 |
|
U.S. Naval Observatory
(Washington, DC, USA) | 0.66 m | 9.9 m | 1873 |
|
Royal Greenwich Observatory
(Greenwich, London, England) | 0.66 m | 6.8 m | 1897 |
|
Yale Southern Station
(Johannesburg, South Africa) | 0.66 m | 10.8 m | 1925 | Yale-Columbia Refractor (moved to Mount Stromlo Observatory in 1952), same telescope as following entry
|
Mount Stromlo Observatory
(Mount Stromlo, Australia) | 0.66 m | 10.8 m | 1925 | Yale-Columbia Refractor - Previously located in South Africa. Relocated to Australia in 1952. Destroyed by bush fire on January 18, 2003
|
Belgrade Observatory
(Belgrade, Yugoslavia) | 0.65 m | 10.55 m | | Same instrument as at the Berlin Observatory
|
Berlin Observatory
(Potsdam, Germany) | 0.65 m | 10.12 m | 1914 | The Berlin Observatory moved in 1913 to Babelsberg
|
[edit] See also
