Talk:40-foot telescope

A fact from 40-foot telescope appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 27 November 2008, and was viewed approximately 4,716 times (disclaimer) (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that William Herschel's 40-foot telescope (pictured) was the largest telescope in the world for 50 years?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2008/November.

Wikipedia

Notes

There are a couple of images at http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/explore/object.cfm?ID=ZBA4492 and http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/explore/object.cfm?ID=PAF7451 - unclear whether these can be used on Wikipedia. Also, original mirror now at the science museum, http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects/astronomy/1932-567.aspx, but URL does not currently work. Mike Peel (talk) 22:13, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The images are covered by the database right component of UK copyright law. Mike Peel (talk) 08:54, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Calling a telescope by its length rather than diameter?

Modern parlance is to refer to telescopes by their diameter. The 40-foot name here is (presumably!) the length of the tube. It would be interesting to have something in the article which discussed why. Has common usage just changed over time? -- RoySmith (talk) 16:33, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes; telescopes at that time were known by the length of their tube rather than the diameter of their mirror, see e.g. [1]. Mike Peel (talk) 09:27, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Merger

I disagree with the merger: the two articles focus on different things, one on a telescope the other on a building/observatory, and I don't think a combined article would work well. I hope that the building article can be expanded in the future. Mike Peel (talk) 10:21, 22 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Johann Alexander Herschel

The NMH website [2] lists "Johann Alexander Herschel" as one of the creators of this telescope. I took this to be John Herschel, but as was pointed out "John Herschel was born in 1792 and can hardly have helped build a telescope finished in 1789." [3]. Does anyone know who Johann Alexander Herschel was? Mike Peel (talk) 21:54, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]