The Afterlife of Telescope Equipment and Astronomy Books

Like Monty Python’s dead parrot, our lives will take their course. But the lifetime of telescope equipment can last for several generations. Galileo’s telescope still exists as a museum piece. Alvin Clark’s 1873 26″ refractor at the U.S. Naval Observatory still remains in use for astrometric measurement. Antique Mogey, Brashear, Broadhurst, Clarkson, and Fuller telescopes are widely sought by collectors of antique scientific instruments. Zeiss telescopes, along with Golden Age telescopes by Cave Optical, Optical Craftsman, and Unitron are highly prized instruments that are still continually used for their intended purpose—seeking and gathering faint starlight (Fig. 11.1).