Historical Materials on the Herschels
Whereabouts of W Herschel's 7-foot telescopes


A Swiss amateur astronomer Mr A Maurer completed a general catalogue of Herschel's telescopes. According to the summery published in Issue No 14 of the Journal of the Antique Telescope Society, the 49 telescopes are classified into the following three groups:

  1. Telescopes for observation by W Herschel himself or Caroline (8)
  2. Telescopes made by Herschel for sale to the persons who had an interest (33)
  3. Telescopes which important parts such as optical parts of were supplied by Herschel or telescopes made by other persons under Herschel's guidance (8)

Here I extract only 7-foot telescopes, which are the same type as Herschel discovered Uranus, and make brief notes on them. (Please refer to the table in below.) There are 26 telescopes; 2 (A5-A6) for the above A, 21 (B7-B33) for B, 3 (C3-C7) for C. 21 telescopes still exist, 2 had existed until recent, other 3 are unknown. I put the corresponding numbers of 7-foot telescopes from the list of Herschel telescopes in "Dawn of Astronomy" (Seibundo-Shinkosha, 1982) by Mr Hiroshi Saida in the row "S" of this table; and from "Visit to Herschel in UK" (Hoshi-no-Techo, Autumn 1981) by Mr Seiji Kimura in the row "K".

No. Cat. Aper.
(mm)
Current location or remarks (*) S K
1 A-5

157

Mr John Herschel-Shorland, Diss, Norfolk, UK

5

2

2

A-6

157

Science Museum, London

6

3

3

B-7

157

Museo di Storia della Sciencia, Firenze

13

4

4

B-8

157

* Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, Milano, until 1943

14

5

5

B-9

159

Royal Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh

15

6

6

B-10

157

Royal Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh

16

7

7

B-11

158

Science Museum, London

17

1

8

B-12

165

Museum of the History of Science, Oxford

18

8

9

B-13

159

Osservatorio Astronomico, Palermo

19

9

10

B-14

159

Teylers Museum, Fysisch Kabinet, Haarlem, the Netherlands

20

10

11

B-15

140

Conservatoire National des Arts et MÉtiers MusÉe National desTechniques, Paris

-

11

12

B-16

159

The Adler Planetarium, Chicago

21

12

13

B-17

161

National Maritime Museum, Greenwich

22

13

14

B-18

159

Tartu Old Observatory, Tartu, Estonia

23

14

15

B-19

157

Staatlicher Mathematisch-Pysikalischer Salon, Dresden

-

-

16

B-26

200

* Sold to Baron Hahn, Ramplin near GÜstrow, Germany for£157.10,presumably similar in design to B-27.

-

-

17

B-27

200

* Ordered in 1796 by the King of Spain, Carlos IV, for£157.10. Deliveredin 1802, similar in design to B-26.

-

-

18

B-28

178

Observatorio Astronomico Nacional, Madrid

-

-

19

B-29

158

Observatorio Astronomico Nacional, Madrid

-

-

20

B-30

?

* Used around 1800 at Sir John Acton's (1736-1811) private S Carlo alleMortelle Observatory, Napoli

-

-

21

B-31

160

Helsinki University, Observatory Helsinki

-

-

22

B-32

163

Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma, Roma

-

-

23

B-33

221

Peter J K Louwman, Wassenaar, the Netherlands

-

-

24

C-3

155

Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt

-

-

25

C-4

160

Stockholms Observatorium SaltsjÖbaden, Stockholm

-

-

26

C-7

165

* SchrÖter's observatory, Lilienthal until 1815, then some years at theUniverstÄtssternwaarte, GÖttingen

-

-

Extracted from Mr A Maurer's "Catalogue of W Herschel Telescopes" Issue 14 - Winter 1998, Journal of the ATS

Mr Maurer wrote "Please always feel free to publish or copy any details from my telescope lists, it is very pleasing to know we ... enjoy identical interests."

Quoted from the Newsletter No 92 issued by the Herschel Society of Japan


Homepage of the Herschel Society of Japan