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Description: | ASTRONOMY
Edinburgh, Scotland - James Short was the outstanding telescope maker of the 18th century. His interest in astronomy was first aroused by the lectures of Colin Maclaurin, Professor of Mathematics at Edinburgh University. He began to make telescopes in 1732, using Maclaurin's own rooms as a workshop. Here, entirely self-taught, he developed the techniques of grinding telescope mirrors of unsurpassed optical quality. He moved to London in 1738 and achieved success rapidly. At his request, the University conferred a degree on him in 1753. He had already been a Fellow of the Royal Society for 15 years. His reputation became international and he supplied telescopes for many observatories and expeditions, in particular those to observe the transit of Venus across the face of the Sun in 1761 and 1769. He made over 1300 telescopes in his lifetime.
The last figures of the signature on this telescope indicate that it was Short's 82nd telescope and the first of this size. | Publisher: | University of St Andrews | Rights holder: | 47795 | Subjects: | GREGORIAN REFLECTING TELESCOPE MATHEMATICS REFLECTING TELESCOPE ASTRONOMY OPTICS science TELESCOPE FOCAL LENGTH MIRROR SHORT REFLECTION INSTRUMENT GREGORY PHYSICS CONCAVE JAMES | Temporal: | 1736/1736 | Source: | University of St Andrews | Creator: | SHORT, James | Identifier: | PH206 | Language: | en-GB |
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