Telescopes For Sale!

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • Aug 05, 2013

As I continue to clean the Special Collection books (ALMOST there!), I keep coming over all sorts of fun things. This is from the back of an astronomy journal. It is an advertisement for a telescope maker – J.W. Fecker of Pittsburg – but what I found personally interesting was that they featured the telescope they had built for my alma mater – Mount Holyoke College. The old Mt. Holyoke observatory, known as the John Payson Williston Observatory, is across the street from the main part of campus and it was wonderful. The attached workspace/classroom was of the same 19th century period as the dome which rotated on old cannon balls! Ah, recycling. It still houses an Alvan Clark – Maria Mitchell had an Alvan Clark – which was part of the original equipment but it may be that the Fecker is gone now. The Fecker Company got bought out but it was in business for about 120 years starting in the 1880s.


JNLF

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