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Historical AttributesThis plate holder was the tailpiece of the 24-inch Bruce photographic telescope. This instrument was set up at the Harvard College Observatory in Cambridge, and then traveled to Harvard's field stations in Peru and South Africa. It was made by Alvan Clark & Sons of Cambridgeport, Massachusetts. The lens was complete in 1893, and the telescope was up and running by 1894.
At the time it was made, it was the world's largest photographic telescope. The telescope was used to photograph the Magellanic Clouds, producing photographic data with which Henrietta Leavitt (1868 - 1921) discovered the period-luminosity relationship of the Cepheid variables. The ninth satellite of Saturn, Phoebe, was also discovered with the telescope.
ProvenanceHarvard College Observatory, Agassiz Station; transfer to CHSI circa 1969.
Published ReferencesDeborah Jean Warner and Robert B. Ariail, "Alvan Clark & Sons: Artists in Optics, 2nd ed. (Richmond: Willmann-Bell, 1995), 107, 207.
Bessie Zaban Jones and Lyle Gifford Boyd, The Harvard College Observatory (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1971).