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![]() The world's largest telescope today is of course the twin Keck telescopes, even taken one by one. And before that, the largest scope was the Russian 6-meter reflector. And before that the Hale 5-meter telescope, and before that the Hooker 2.5-meter telescope. But before that? I'd like to assemble a list of the world's largest telescopes, in chronological order. Ideally it should cover all the time from Galileo's telescope in 1609 to the present time, and be complete, but quite naturally available information may be incomplete or inaccurate particularly from the 1600's and 1700's. Currently, the list looks as below. By a curious coincidence Lord Rosse's 72-inch Leviathan was dismantled in 1908, the same year that Mount Wilson's 60-inch reflector became operational; since the latter happened on 20 Dec 1908, Lord Rosse's Leviathan was most likely dismantled before that date. Thus, there ought to be some time (several months?) during 1908 when neither the Leviathan nor Mt Wilson's 60-inch was the world's largest telescope. But I don't know which other telescope was the largest immediately before Mt Wilson's 60-inch. Anybody got an idea? I also have a lot of gaps in my list before 1783, when William Herschel finished his 20 foot f.l. (0.43 meter aperture) reflector, so any information there is welcome. I'm also not sure whether Herchel's 40-foot reflector remained operational all the time until 1845 (a few decades after Herschel's death in 1822); if not, there's another gap there which needs to be filled. Note that the size of scopes were usually given as the focal length in feet; not until the Leviathan the aperture was given as the "size" instead. Thus, both Lord Rosse's Leviathan and Galileo Galilei's scope were 6 foot scopes.... :-) Anyway, here's my list. Comments, additions and corrections are welcome! ================================================== ============ World's largest Aperture Scope scope in 1609 0.044 m Galileos 5-6 foot f.l. refractor, x33 1640 ca ? 15-20 foot refractors 1656 0.07 m Christian Huygens 23 f.l. foot refractor, x100 1670 ca ? Hevelius 140 foot f.l. refractor 1675 (The "air telescope") 1730 ca (Large reflectors) 1774 (William Herschel starts making telescopes) 1783-1789 0.43 m William Herschel's 20 foot f.l. reflector, Bath, England 1789-1845 1.22 m William Herschel's 40 foot f.l. reflector, Bath, England 1845-1908 1.83 m Lord Rosse's Leviathan, 6 foot ap., Birr Castle, Ireland; dismantled 1908 1908 ?????? ?????????? (some other scope - which?) 1908-1917 1.5 m 60-inch, Mt Wilson, California, USA; operational 20 Dec 1917-1948 2.5 m Hooker 100-inch, Mt Wilson, California, USA 1948-1974 5.0 m Hale 200-inch, Mt Palomar, California, USA 1974-1990 6.0 m Bolshoi, Nizhny Arkhyz, Russia 1990- 10.0 m Keck, Mauna Kea, Hawaii, USA ================================================== ============ -- ---------------------------------------------------------------- Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN e-mail: pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se WWW: http://www.stjarnhimlen.se/ http://home.tiscali.se/pausch/ |
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