birrcastle

There's that condensed script titling again ... Previously (10 years ago!) -

"... Although the 4th Earl built a smaller 3 ft equatorial in 1876, the six-foot telescope remained in use until about 1890. After his death in 1908, the telescope was partly dismantled, and in 1914, one of the mirrors with its mirror box was transferred to the Science Museum in London. The walls remained. The tube, second mirror box, and universal joint survived. ... From - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_of_Parsonstown Also - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equatorial_mount

There is another haystack to the left (like aliens!) seen in the wider angle Cabinet photo - catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000338518 Edit - and there are a couple of neighbouring Cabinet plates of the Leviathan, all likely to be the same day as today's photo, and noticeably without Lawrence Parsons, 4th Earl of Rosse - catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000338516 catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000338517

“Lord Rosse's 3-foot telescope, at Birr Castle, Parsonstown, Ireland. This telescope was constructed in 1839 by the Irish astronomer William Parsons (1800-1867), later the 3rd Earl of Rosse. Pioneering research carried out with this telescope includes the 4th Earl's measurements of the temperature of the Moon in 1868. The more famous telescope is the 6-foot Leviathan of Birr, used to observe nebulae (later called galaxies). The 3-foot telescope was originally operated using an altazimuth mount. In the 1870s it was mounted equatorially. The basket at left was used to raise the observer to the top of the telescope and make observations by looking down the telescope's framework barrel at the mirror.” The Science Photo Library www.sciencephoto.com/media/321431/view/lord-rosse-s-3-foo... So if anybody knows which type of mount it was in the photo would date it pre or post 1870

Flickr is sometimes amazing! Via John C McConnell "A early photo of the "first" 3-foot telescope at Birr Castle. Notice the Herschel type mounting on a turntable. ..." -

25" OSI The formal garden was to the right of the main house but there were shubberies and rockeries all over the estate. so she could be sitting anywhere. Born Augusta Caroline Crofton 16th October 1839, she died 5th September 1928 She would have been 75/76 in 1915.

From her date of birth (16.10.1839) she would have been 75 in 1915.

TCD is working on a Letters of 1916 project, which includes a bunch to/from the Clonbrocks from about this time. For example R.E. Dillon congratulating his mother on her golden wedding anniversary.

I’d kill to see this television series! Do any of you remember it? The ladies of the lens At the Great Exhibition in London of 1851, Lady Augusta Crofton’s father bought her a camera and she never looked back. With Rose Shaw she became one of the earliest photographers in Ireland and starting tonight their work, along with thousands of pictures by their male colleagues, will be featured by RTÉ in a six-part television documentary series on old photographs called “Shadows”. “Lady Augusta Crofton was the first great Irish woman photographer” says Michael O’Connell, producer of the series. “If you think that photography was only invented in 1837 and that she was in action by the very early 1850s that makes her very much part of the pioneers. She was operating a camera less than ten years after what would be reputed to be the first photographs taken in Ireland.” With her wet plate process camera, Augusta, who married into the Dillon family of Clonbrock in East Galway, took over 1,000 photographs which are today in the basement of the National Library [not any more, they’re not!] and God knows how many others as well which are now lost to posterity… (Irish Times, 15 February 1985)

Where are the photographs now Carol? Sounds a terrific TV series!

so great to see an old photo of this ! we were talking about it the other evening

Foxglove It's a fantastic construction/contraption/feat of engineering, is it not?

I had never seen it, truly a fantastic piece of work. I take it The Lord Rosse looking in the scope is the other one???

Swordscookie I think he could be Lawrence Parsons, 4th Earl of Rosse - the beard seems right. But if anyone knows any different...

It's still there, restored quite recently:



This was the largest telescope in the world for 70 years.