ancient Cooke telescope

[kiwi_outdoors]

this is just a reminisence.  As a teenager in the late 1960s, in Auckland, New Zealand,   I would see a far neighbors house with a rectangular penthouse in the middle of a flat roof.  And it had a telescope of some sort inside.  I wound up befriending, to some degree,  the old guy named Fred that lived there.  He even gave me the steel tube and unsilvered 6" mirror (and cell)  that he had made for a telescope (which I made into a functioning 6" Newtonian with the addition of a home-made spider, prism, eyepiece etc.)  Fred also had a 12" mirror and metal tube in his basement!   

The telescope in the penthouse was an ancient  Cooke refractor, 4" , on an alt-az mount on a rolling tripod.  The penthouse did not have an opening roof, so the scope was not good for much night sky observing. 

It turned out that Fred also had the pedestal mount Cooke equatorial, with clockwork drive, which is what that long scope really needed in order to follow a night sky object. 

I moved away, and lost track of Fred and the telescope and mount.  But I always felt privileged to have seen and touched these items from yesteryear. 

 

My memory guess on the equatorial mount is attached.

 

It was likely this item, copied from a for sale post.  Or it may have been a more "modern" version of the same stuff. It sure looked old.

Antique T. Cooke and Sons 4″/F18 triplet Apo with original pillar, eq mount & clock drive. Circa 1890
Historically important, 1890’s T. Cooke and Sons 4″/F18 PhotoVisual triplet for sale.

This museum piece is a rare example of this triplet lens; considered by most to be the first true apochromat refractor. A solid brass tube on a Cooke EQ mount complete with H. Taylor weight driven clock drive, original connecting rod/Hooke’s joint & original iron pillar. All original weights are included and all drive and slow motion components elements on the EQ mount are working smoothly as they should. The objective lens is clean and clear and is mounted via a Cooke bayonet mounting ring. The equatorial mount features original brass & silver setting circles with fixed magnifying lenses on both axes.

[kiwi_outdoors]

Update:  the property that Fred owned was build in the 1900 decade - about the same age as the telescope !!

[banjaxed]

That looks like a VERY solid mount.

[Mark at Beaufort]

@kiwi_outdoorswelcome to SGL. Its nice to have a memory of such a wonderful refractor.

By the way I have a Son living in Livermore and often pass through Oakland on the BART on my way to San Francisco.