Reassembling the telescope

Macdonnell’s telescope arrived at the Museum in many parts. The conservation team made initial repairs and conducted a trial reassembly to determine how it fitted together. It was then completely taken apart again and the more complex conservation and re-engineering problems addressed. Once all elements had been refurbished and repaired, the instrument was assembled and balanced.

Despite extensive searches in the archives of the telescope’s manufacturer, Thomas Grubb’s Astronomical Instrument Works, the conservation team was unable to locate original plans for the instrument. To understand how the telescope had worked, the team relied upon general principles of telescope function, experiments determining how parts might be made to work, a few archival images and comparisons with similar telescopes at Mount Stromlo Observatory in Canberra and the Science Museum in London.