Neptune Discovery Telescope
The telescope at New Berlin Observatory (1835–1913), that discovered Neptune, was an achromatic refractor of 9 Paris inch (9.6 English inches or 24.4 cm) aperture made by the late Joseph Fraunhofer's firm, Merz und Mahler. It was a high performance telescope of its era, with one of the largest achromatic doublets available and a finely made equatorial mount, with a clockwork drive to move the 4 m (13.4′) main tube in time with Earth's rotation. Eventually the telescope was moved to Deutsches Museum in München, Germany, where it can still be seen in the 21st century as an exhibit.
Read more about this topic: Discovery Of Neptune
Famous quotes containing the words neptune, discovery and/or telescope:
“His nature is too noble for the world;
He would not flatter Neptune for his trident,
Or Jove for’s power to thunder.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“He is not a true man of science who does not bring some sympathy to his studies, and expect to learn something by behavior as well as by application. It is childish to rest in the discovery of mere coincidences, or of partial and extraneous laws. The study of geometry is a petty and idle exercise of the mind, if it is applied to no larger system than the starry one.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The sight of a planet through a telescope is worth all the course on astronomy; the shock of the electric spark in the elbow, outvalues all the theories; the taste of the nitrous oxide, the firing of an artificial volcano, are better than volumes of chemistry.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)