Maker: Unknown

Year: 1690 c.

Year Range: -

Year Notes:

Manufacturing Location: Italy / England

Signature:

Signature Notes:

Inscriptions:

No stand present.

Collection: National Maritime Museum

Accession #: NAV1490

Sources:

Royal Museums Greenwich. "Hand-held telescope". http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/43702.html. [Accessed: June 2016]

Public Notes:

Museum Description:
"This non-achromatic telescope has seven draw tubes made of paper covered in vellum, while the barrel is covered in multi-coloured vellum and further decorated with gold tooling. The lenses are set in turned ebony mounts. A hand-written inscription on the largest draw tube states that it belonged to the Rev. Ralph Taylor, who went into exile with King James II (reigned 1685-88) and later lived in Rotterdam. The inscription also says that the telescope is probably Italian, although it is English in style. Early telescope lenses suffered from the appearance of coloured fringes, a problem that could be reduced by using lenses with long focal lengths. This meant, however, that the telescopes had to be very long - this telescope can be extended to over two metres in length" (Royal Museums Greenwich).

Inscription as written on tube:
"This telescope, probably made in Italy*, belonged to the Revd D’ Ralph Taylor who went / into exile with James II and after leaving St Gerinains lived for a time at Rotterdam / Galileo is said to have made a large number himself"

*Here Holland is struckout and Italy is written above it.

Provenance:

Ralph Taylor

Length (open): 1649

Length (closed): 503

F-ratio:

Exit pupil:

Object status:

Objective type: singlet

Optical style

Physical style

Functional style

Materials: paper, vellum, wood

Drawtube data:

Drawtube notes:

Diameter: 69 mm (Barrel)

Objective Data

Eyepieces

Notes:

NMM_1490_text.docx