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Description: | The Collection of Historic Scieintific Instruments at the University of St Andrews contains many objects connected to astronomy. In 1673 James Gregory, Professor of Mathematics at St Andrews, obtained the University’s consent to set up an observatory, and travelled to London to obtain instruments and apparatus for this purpose. His purchases probably included the magnificent Great Astrolabe (1575) and Universal Instrument (1582) by Humphrey Cole, both of which could be used for astronomical purposes and remain in the collections to this day. Gregory left St Andrews for a post at the University of Edinburgh before the observatory was complete, and it was probably never brought into use.
Gregory also purchased three clocks made by Joseph Knibb of London: two regulators and one split seconds clock. When Professors David Young and Charles Gregory made observations of the solar eclipse on 18 February 1737, they used the clocks. A reflecting telescope by James Short, the pre-eminent telescope maker of the period, was bought in 1736. A meridian line appears to have been laid down in the University Library in 1748, by Thomas Short, who founded Edinburgh's Calton Hill Observatory.
The astronomical collections have continued to grow, and now include 19th and 20th century material relating to astronomical research and observations at St Andrews. | Subjects: | SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS ASTRONOMY PHYSICS | Source: | University of St Andrews | Address: | KY16 9AJ | Creator: | GREGORY, James | Contributor: | University of St Andrews | Identifier: | PH:C98 | Language: | en-GB | Relation: | MC:C48 |
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