Lord Rosse's Telescope

Abstract

“MY DEAR LORD ROSSE.—Yesterday evening a friend conveyed to me a note, inserted in the Times of April 3, under the title ‘Three Giant Telescopes’, in which I am told of having expressed myself in a very uncourteous manner on the optical qualities of the great reflector constructed by your late father. I beg leave to say that those expressions are altogether invented by the anonymous author of the note, or, at least, quite a voluntary and thoroughly wrong interpretation of witat I may have said. I am sorry my name is abused in such a manner by people who probably have a design of their own in depreciating the performances of the instrument, the construction of which marked in itself a high progress in optics and mechanics, and which in its space-penetrating power has not had any rival until now, though certainly with regard to definition (particulary when the mirror is considerably out of horizontal position) there are other instruments superior to it.