Troughton Astronomical Telescope
Troughton and Simms, London · 1880
A tall brass telescope on a heavy iron mount stands in the gallery of Japanese science like an actor who has stepped in from another century. The tube is about three metres long and the objective lens at the top is twenty centimetres across, large for its day. It was made in London in 1880 by Troughton and Simms, the leading makers of astronomical instruments in Victorian Britain, and ordered by the Japanese government in the years when the country was rebuilding its science on Western lines after the Meiji Restoration.
Look at the mount. It is an equatorial, with one axis tilted to point at the celestial pole so that a single slow motion, driven by a clockwork weight, keeps a star in view as the Earth turns. The graduated brass circles let the observer set the telescope on a star by its coordinates, and the small finder scope alongside helped locate it. Everything is finished to the standard of a fine clock. The telescope was installed at the Naval Observatory in Tokyo and then at the new Tokyo Astronomical Observatory, where it was used for decades to observe planets, double stars and the transit of stars across the meridian.
Its most celebrated work came in the 1890s, when it was used to photograph and time stars for the determination of latitude that helped establish Japan's place in international astronomy. Retired from research in the twentieth century, it was preserved by the National Astronomical Observatory and transferred to this museum, and in 2000 it was designated an Important Cultural Property, the first scientific instrument to receive that honour. It marks the moment when Japan began to look at the sky with the same tools as the rest of the world.
Did You Know? It was the first scientific instrument in Japan to be designated an Important Cultural Property, in the year 2000.
Unlock the Full Guide
Read every room and listen to every work in all museums with premium.