Lord Rousse and Birr Castle

On Sat, 19 Jul 2003 19:34:09 -0700, "David Feindel" ...reflected:

I have an opportunity to visit Birr Castle next week. Has anyone been
there? Where is it in relation to Dublin? Are there any tours and/or
observing times available for amateurs? How much of the original telescope
has been restored?

thanks in advance for any information SAA can provide

Delightfully subtle, that was.

Alan

Birr Castle has a web site with lots of information about the
telescope at:

http://www.birrcastleireland.com/new/index.htm

I saw the link in an S&T article a couple of months back and checked
it out. Looks like an interesting place to visit (I am always
interested in the history of astronomy). I would be interested (maybe
others) in what you see there.

socalsw




"David Feindel" wrote in message ...
I have an opportunity to visit Birr Castle next week. Has anyone been
there? Where is it in relation to Dublin? Are there any tours and/or
observing times available for amateurs? How much of the original telescope
has been restored?

thanks in advance for any information SAA can provide

We went to Birr as part of our honeymoon trip in 2000. It is dead
center in Ireland about 3 hours west of Dublin (most of the trip is on
motorway so it is quite easy). We came from the west on a day trip
that included Clonmacnoise so we only had about an hour to see the
scope. We missed the science center and most of the grounds. We saw
some of the gardens and wished we had more time. The gardens
whemselves are rated top-100 in the world and there is so much other
stuff to see on the grounds that it is really a half-day trip at the
least.

The scope had just been restored when we got there and it looked
impressive. Wonderful job on the restoration. The new mirror is
modern and quite a jump up from the speculum mirror Lord Rosse used to
define the structure of M-51 (the original mirror is in a museum in
London). The scope wasn't in use yet when we vistied but the S&T
artivle on the Whirlpool Star Party might shed light on it's current
use.

This is a must see for the astronomy/science buff or the gardener.
There is also supposed to be a fine exhibit on photography (Mary Rosse
was a major photographer). The Birr Castle link is
(http://www.birrcastleireland.com/new...m/new/main.htm).
You might also try the Armagh Observatory
(http://www.arm.ac.uk/home.html). We just stumbled onto it in
Northern Ireland and it was one of our favorite places.
- Steve

Bearcat666 wrote:

The scope had just been restored when we got there and it looked
impressive. Wonderful job on the restoration. The new mirror is
modern and quite a jump up from the speculum mirror Lord Rosse used to
define the structure of M-51 (the original mirror is in a museum in
London). The scope wasn't in use yet when we vistied but the S&T
artivle on the Whirlpool Star Party might shed light on it's current
use.

The mirror is a metal one again, in aluminium I think. It was made by
University College London.

Lord Rosse's son Charles was, as Charles Parsons, was the inventor of
the steam turbine. He went on to found the great British company
Grubb-Parsons, makers of some of the worlds finest telescopes in the
20th century. Their former chief optician is David Sinden, now of Sinden
optics.

Steve
--
Steve Taylor
Technical Director
Astronomy Centre
http://www.astronomycentre.org.uk