THROUGH MY LENS - The Great Telescope at Birr Castle (Part 1)

Once again I am posting about Birr Castle but today I am showing you The Great Telescope.  In the early 1840’s, the Third Earl of Rosse designed and built the largest telescope in the world. With this telescope, he discovered the spiral nature of some of the galaxies, and from 1845-1914, anyone wishing to witness this phenomenon had to come to Birr. And they came, in their hundreds, from across Europe and beyond, to observe the stars with Lord Rosse or simply to marvel at this feat of engineering in the middle of Ireland.

This Reflecting telescope remained the largest in the world for over 70 years and is arguably the largest historic scientific instrument still working today. This ‘leviathan’ as it is named, remains in the centre of the Demesne as Ireland’s greatest scientific wonder and represents a masterpiece of human creative genius.

In 2017, LOFAR radio-telescope station IE613 was constructed in the grounds of the castle. This is the westernmost station in the LOFAR network. The I-Lofar telescope, in 2018, observed for the first time a billion-year-old red-dwarf, flare star called CN Leo, almost 75 trillion kilometres away.

I handed my camera to a gentleman who kindly took this shot of me beside this wonderful invention.

Make sure to pop in on Wednesday to see part 2 of The Great Telescope post.

I am linking to THROUGH MY LENS.

Many thanks for visiting and also for your comments.