JF Ptak Science Books Post 2372
“In the old Telescope’s tube we sit, and the shades of the past around us flit; His requiem sing we, with shout and din, while the old year goes out and the new comes in”–Verses composed by a child of John Herschel, on final resting place of the great 40′ telescope, 1840
A “Mad King” entered the world’s greatest telescope just before it was completed; 51 years later after a good life in the skies, children played inside of it in a garden, the telescope horizontal and asleep. Between those times William, Caroline, and John Herschel used it and the data it produced to perhaps the greatest end of any family that has ever worked in the field of astronomy. They were the great classifiers in astronomy, and their telescope, constructed between 1785 and 1789, 40′ long and with 48″ mirrors, was a contributor to that, and was the largest telescope in the world for about 50 years.
[Institute of Astronomy via The Economist]
Even though the telescope wasn’t laid to rest until 1840, it stayed in use only until 1815, having come online in August 1789. Magnificent as the 40′ was, there were certain problems with it, and occasionally the great bulk of the instrument worked against itself, and it sometimes proved less effective than smaller telescopes.
The telescope was a result of some fantastic work by William Herschel (1738-1822), who built hundreds of superb instruments over his lifetime, and whose prodigious work lead to many discoveries, not the least of which was the discovery of Uranus, which was the first planet added to the night sky since antiquity and which (sky!) rocketed Herschel to international fame. (There were serious suggestions among the leading figures in astronomy that the planet be called “Herschel”. The British Crown responded to the utter beauty of his work and offered funds to construct the great telescope. When it was nearly constructed King George III visited and stepped inside the tube of the great thing, stating something to the effect that it was the stairway to the stars.
George III had a certain set of issues–well, it was all mostly issues, due to some physical malady that caused the poor King to live a very strange intellectual and interpersonal existence, bursting the known limits of “normalcy”. But he was certainly correct in his appraisal of the telescope.
George III survived his failure with the Colonies by 31, as well as the useful life of the telescope by five. I’m not sure how long he survived himself.
Back to the children and the retirement of the telescope. It was about 25 years after the telescope drew its last useful breaths that John Herschel, William’s son, decided to haul the iconic instrument down. He was concerned about the deterioration of the telescope, namely the wooden casing that was rotting around the metal tube–and the fear that the thing would collapse. A big, heavy, wood and metal 4′ wide tube crashing down from its perch, possibly injuring his children. And so down it came. The wood casing came off, the mirrors came out, and the telescope was laid horizontally of wooden blocks in the garden–the “broad bright eye” was consigned to its final rest.
There was a ceremony to the resting bequest of the telescope, and it reminded me not so much of funerary customs, but of memory more so than remembrance. It was to me more like the beautiful and simple Japanese monuments to lost and broken children’s toys rather than burying something on a hill under a lonesome pine. The Herschel telescope, which figured to be one of the great and iconic images of telescopes (and perhaps astronomy?) in the history of science, was laid to rest with a family-and-friends ceremony at the Herschel’s. Like the idea behind the Japanese monument to toys, and their memory and importance, whether the toys existed or not–the ceremony for each discriminated the importance of the object that made it more than the “thing” it started out to be. The ceremony elevated the object to the place it deserved to be, living or not.
“No two toys are ever broken in the same way or with the same emotional results.” Robert Graves, Poetic Unreason
And there was a ceremony (on January 1, 1840) for the telescope: the Herschels and their seven children and the children’s governesses and assorted friends who had known the telescope and William Herschel formed a procession that circled the telescope several times, after which the entire party entered it and sat on benches provided for the occasion. There were verses sung (reprinted below)–evidently to make as much noise in the old telescope as possible, after which the group exited, circled the instrument a few more times, at which point the open end of the telescope was sealed.
“God grant that its end this group may find
In love and harmony fondly joined;
And that some of its fifty years hence once more,
May make the old telescope’s echoes roar?
Merrily, merrily, let us sing, an dmae the old telescope rattle and ring”
I found this lovely story in an issue of The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, for Saturday, April 25, 1840, page 281.
I mentioned above that the telescope is one of the iconic history of science images of the last few centuries–as it turns out the early photographic portrait of the man (John Herschel) who put the telescope down with great dignity is another iconic image, with that in the history of astronomy. The work is by Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879), and the image was made in 1867:
Image source: The National Portrait Gallery, via wiki commons
The piece from The Mirror follows:
It is interesting to note here that not long ago the BBC’s “Stargazing Live” built a modern version of the 40′–using a sewer pipe.
