Lord Rosse's Telescope

Abstract

IN an article in the Times newspaper there occurs the passage—“With regard to the mighty mirror of the Parsonstown reflector M. Struve has spoken in no very complimentary terms. It was said of Sir W. Herschel's four-feet reflector that it ‘bunched a star into a cocked hat;’ but even this is scarcely less satisfactory than M. Struve's remark that at Parsonstown ‘they showed me something which they said was Saturn, and I believed them.’” This revival of the statement attributed by Mr. Proctor in Frazer's Magazine for December, 1869, to “a distinguishing (sic) astronomer,” has called forth the appended letter from the Imperial Astronomer of Russia. It is satisfactory to receive direct from M. Struve a statement of his experience of the performance of the six-foot instrument.