Re: [ATM] historic glass pusher 'With'

[Guy Brandenburg <gfbrandenburg@yahoo.com>]

Britain, you say? The French contributions were extremely important as well. We have the Foucault test, the Couder mask, not to mention the Italian Ronchi test which derives from one of Foucault's tests; and Foucault acknowledges his debt to a German technique for his advances in silvering the telescope mirror. At one point, Foucault visited the Rosse telescope and thought its optics were a joke. Note that one of the pages cited below indicates that With remained ignorant of the Foucault knife-edge test; if he had known about it, With probably could have made better telescopes. This is really an international operation, which because of financial and technical background requirements, took off in most of the more technically advanced countries in the world.
Guy

"Francis J. O'Reilly" <foreilly@bestweb.net> wrote: Peter,
Thank you for all of this information.
I willl look at the article. The historical aspect of telescope making is 
important to me for a variety of reasons. It appears that the hobby began in Britain to a large degree.
I wonder if Amateur telescope making took off in other areas, such as 
Africa, Asia or Australia in the 19th century?

Francis J. O'Reilly
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Abrahams" 
To: 
Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007 1:50 AM
Subject: [ATM] historic glass pusher 'With'


> The trouble with With is that it is real tough to search for his name 
> without matching almost every file on the internet, or in your own 
> computer.
>
> Jenkins, Griffith Parry.  A Plea for the Reflecting Telescope.  Journal of 
> the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada 5 (Feb. 1911) 59-75.
> This paper is about G.H. With, Samuel Cooper, John Jones, & Albert Taylor.
> It can be found on the ADS:
> http://adsabs.harvard.edu/journals_service.html
>
> This paper is also on ADS:
> Marriott, R. A.  The life and legacy of G. H. With, 1827-1904. Journal of 
> the British Astronomical Association 106:5 (Oct. 1996) 257-264.
> http://adsabs.harvard.edu/journals_service.html
>
> On yahoo groups, Carl Zambuto posted a note about his test results of a 
> With mirror, on 14 Nov. 2005
> "Subject: "With" mirror evaluation".  He said it was very good, but there 
> were some issues with smoothness & edge.
>
> --Peter Abrahams
>
> 


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"Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."
- wtote Charles Darwin.
Guy Brandenburg, Washington, DC
My home page on astronomy, mathematics, education:
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or else 
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