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A little Warner & Swasey telescope history

I had no idea that Warner and Swasey were telescope people. But I did know that James Hartness, Springfield, VT inventor of turret lathes, Vermont governor and boss of Jones & Lamson, built his own telescope and observatory in his front yard. That was in 1910. It is still there. The observatory was just one bit of his astonishing underground workshop complex, reached by a tunnel from his house. The ultimate basement shop.

Hartness-Porter Astronomy and Telescope Museum - Springfield Vermont

Larry
 
Warner & Swasey made another facinating optical instrument called a "Depression Rangefinder". This was mounted in a high observation post, often a tower, and used to sight the big coastal guns of the U.S. Coast Artillery Corps. That would be c. 1898-WW2.

Here's a good photo: CAC fire control

Great mechanical precision would obviously be needed in a system like this. A small error of depression angle would translate into a large error in estimated range. Warner & Swasey must have used extreme care in their manufacture.

JRR
 
In 1986, I climbed to the top of Diamond Head, an old volcano crater overlooking Honolulu, HI. There was a path originally meant for pack mules and soldiers. It was a long hard climb. The summit had a complex of concrete fire control stations, but the instruments were long gone. I remember seeing a base for a large instrument that could have been the depression range finder or an angular bearing device. The view of Waikiki was fantastic.

Just west of Waikiki Beach is Fort DeRussy, a 1911 coastal artillery battery and military reservation. The 14" guns are gone, but Battery Randolph was converted into a very fine Army museum.

Larry
 
If you're very lucky to find a copy of "The First Fifty Years of Warner & Swasey Co." It give a little more history of the telescopes and many of them they built and where they are. :)

My copy of that book is here somewhere.:toetap:

Ken
 
We do now know, thanks to previous posts, that Swasey gave an observatory and chapel to Denison College near Columbus, OH and Warner and Swasey gave an observatory to Case School of Applied Science, now Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Case still uses the W&S Observatory name, but disposed of the original observatory building because of light pollution from the city. In 2005, a new owner said he was planning to convert it to a residence.

History of the Warner and Swasey Observatory

Here is a list of many of the observatories in Ohio, and I saw W&S mentioned in several of the listings. But the Case and Denison observatories may be the only ones financed by W &/or S.

Ohio's Observatories

Larry
 
I was at the lowell observatory in Flagstaff AZ and they have a W&S mount for the Clark scope and the UofA has a W&S mount on one of the small scopes on campus.
 
I was looking up some information for another post and in this search
Internet Archive Search: subject:"Astronomical instruments"
and turned up this book
Few astronomical instruments from the works of Warner &Swasey (1900)
Few astronomical instruments from the works of Warner & Swasey : Warner & Swasey : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive
I thought those who had followed this thread might like to see it.

I clicked on the link where it said Author and the search revealed another book that may be similar but earlier than the one mentioned by 4GSR.
The Warner & Swasey Company, 1880-1920 (1920)
The Warner & Swasey Company, 1880-1920 : Warner & Swasey : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive.
I don’t know if this is posted in any of the other Warner & Swasey threads on this forum or not.
Regards,
Jim
 
Last edited:
I found a link to a video about a W&S. telescope at the CSTM. in Ottawa Ontario
Copied from the link.
"The 15” refracting telescope featured in this video was built by the Warner and Swasey company of Cleveland, Ohio. It was originally located at Ottawa’s Dominion Observatory. With the closure of this observatory in 1970s, it was moved to the Canada Science and Technology Museum. It is now housed in the Museum’s Helen Sawyer Hogg Observatory, where it is used for public astronomy education."
Optical Telescopes Part II, Astronomy Videos | Canada Science and Technology Museum
Regards,
Jim
 
What a shame. When I got interested in Astronomy back in high school Yerkes was one of the main scopes always mentioned in books.
 
I was just out at Kitt Peak outside Tucson and was slightly surprised to see a Warner and Swasey observatory there, which unfortunately looked sadly forgotten.
 
sandiapaul said:
Odd about Kitt Peak as I made some parts for it back in about 2000. I guess times change.
Click to expand...

I gather that funding and custody of some of the telescopes there has been in jeopardy and the public outreach/education group has assumed governance of more and more of them. The telescope there had Warner-Swasey on a sign over the entrance, with I think one letter missing and one letter leaning. It made me sad for the scope and for Cleveland, my adopted home for many years.
 
I suspect funding for any specific instrument (there are more that 20 at Kitt Peak) are subject to whatever funding is available by way of the research projects the instruments are being used for.
 
Warner and Sawsey also made rifle scopes for WW1 sniper rifles. Think they were 1908 and 1913 models, using a prism and mounted on the 1903 Springfield rifle. About 5x power.
 
The problem is, once a scientific instrument is unable to make further novel contributions to the store of human knowledge, it is of no use unless it can be re purposed for education or some other function. The alternative is to maintain the instrument as an antique but this may be expensive especially at a place like Kitt Peak which is a long way from population centers. The other trouble is only a few of these telescopes were really historically important, like those on Mt Palomar and Mt Wilson. I was reading up on Yerkes just now and I would hope that Williams Bay Wisconsin would allow some development on the site which U Chicago clearly wants to sell, in exchange for donating the observatory building to a non-profit and funding some maintenance on the telescope. It must be a heck of a great telescope for public astronomy.

Remember what my father said though: The important thing in science is not the instruments but the papers that came from the instruments. The papers will last as long as humans have memory.
 
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