The Restoration of the Leviathan

The Whirlpool Star Party held annually in September/October in Birr County Ofally in recent years has seen the restoration of one of the wonders of the astronomy world, this telescope was the largest in the world from 1845 to 1917 when the Mount Wilson Telescope was built. 72 inch reflector















This years star party will be held on October 8-10th and should be an exciting weekend, the event consists of lectures on Saturday and Sunday with observing sessions for amateur astronomers on Friday and Saturday night weather permitting
The telescope has a 72" mirror and a focal length of 52 feet and was built around the time of the Famine years in early 1840 by the 3rd earl of Ross, The Earl experimented with casting smaller mirrors, first an 18" and then a 3" mirror before undertaking the project.
The Earl made many discoveries, the most noteworthy being the spiral nature of the "WHIRLPOOL GALAXY" M-51 using the telescope between the years 1845 to 1880, after this the telescope was not used and has been in a state of decay for many years. One of the original mirrors is in the Science Museum in London. Michael Tubridy was the Project Engineer responsible for its restoration which took 1 year to complete at a cost of just less than 1 million pounds, the new optics were not included in the original cost.
The restoration begun in February 1996 and a company in Galway, "Universal Works" were given the task of repairing/restoring the main tube assembly, this took 6 months to complete and was a huge success, the restored tube weighs 12 tonnes, about 10% of the original redwood was salvaged and reused. view near eyepiece
gantry view

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Charles Coughlan
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