Object Details
- Description
- In an effort to get a better fix on the distance between the Earth and the Sun, the United States sponsored eight parties to observe the 1874 transit of Venus across the face of the sun, and equipped each with apparatus made by Alvan Clark & Sons. This 5-inch aperture lens in a brass cell was the objective for one of the eight equatorial refractors. The “VIII Nagasaki 1 / Fort Selden N.M.” inscription scratched on the cell indicates that this was used at Nagasaki in 1874, and Cerro Roblero (a site near Fort Selden, an Army post in what is now New Mexico) during the transit of Venus of 1882.
- Ref: Simon Newcomb, ed., Observations of the Transit of Venus, December 8-9, 1874 (Washington, D.C., 1880), p. 16.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
- maker
- Alvan Clark & Sons
- date made
- 1874
- Measurements
- overall: 1 1/2 in x 5 3/4 in; 3.81 cm x 14.605 cm
- overall: 1 5/8 in x 6 in; 4.1275 cm x 15.24 cm
- Object Name
- telescope objective lens
