40-foot telescope
in undefined, United KingdomCategory: Attraction
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Herschel House, 58 Herschel St, Slough SL1 1PG, UK Print route »
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William Herschel's 40-foot telescope, also known as the Great Forty-Foot telescope, was a reflecting telescope constructed between 1785 and 1789 at Observatory House in Slough, England. It used a 48-inch (120 cm) diameter primary mirror with a 40-foot-long (12 m) focal length (hence its name "Forty-Foot"). It was the largest telescope in the world for 50 years. It may have been used to discover Enceladus and Mimas, the 6th and 7th moons of Saturn. It was dismantled in 1840; today the original mirror and a 10-foot (3.0 m) section of the tube remain.
