Telescope Building
The giant 98-inch Isaac Newton Telescope was once housed in this silver dome to the south of the main complex at The Royal Greenwich Observatory. During its days at Herstmonceux, the RGO built up an enviable reputation for world-class astronomical research.
Each year, Herstmonceux Castle was the venue for a major conference attracting top astronomers from all over the world. The RGO was also responsible for more routine work, involving the careful mapping of star positions, monitoring of solar activity and provision of a national time service.
It was from the observatory’s atomic clocks at Herstmonceux that the familiar ‘six-pips’ were sent by land-line to the BBC for broadcast. Today, the BBC generates the ‘pips’ for themselves. Another facet of the RGO’s work was the production of annual almanacs which contained the carefully computed positions of the sun, moon, planets and stars for every day of the year.
Unfortunately, even Herstmonceux is not a good astronomical site in world terms and the unreliable UK weather meant that the Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) could not be utilised as much as it should have been. With the advent of cheap air travel in the sixties it became feasible for astronomers to travel to other observatories in order to use telescopes in the best possible locations.
Eventually, the decision was taken to establish a major overseas observatory in the northern hemisphere and to move the INT there, where it could be put to better use. In 1979 the telescope was dismantled, removed from its dome and completely refurbished before being installed on top of an extinct volcano on the Canary Island of La Palma in 1984.
Here it forms part of the International ‘Roque de los Muchachos Observatory’ run as an overseas facility by the Royal Greenwich Observatory. With its main telescopes located abroad, resources for maintaining the instruments at Herstmonceux diminished and they were used less and less.
Eventually, the decision was taken to move the Observatory again, this time to a new site at Cambridge, adjacent to the University’s Institute of Astronomy. The Observatory moved to Cambridge in 1990 leaving behind the Equatorial Group of Telescopes.
The above was borrowed from The Observatory Science Centre Website.
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