A theodolite is a precision optical instrument for measuring angles between designated visible points in the horizontal and vertical planes. The traditional use has been for land surveying, but it is also used extensively for building and infrastructure construction, and some specialized applications such as meteorology and rocket launching.
John Dollond was an English optician, known for his successful optics business and his patenting and commercialization of achromatic doublets.
T. Cooke & Sons was an English instrument-making firm, headquartered in York. It was founded by Thomas Cooke by 1837.
Troughton & Simms was a British scientific instrument firm. It was formed when Edward Troughton in his old age took on William Simms as a partner in 1826. It became a limited company in 1915 and in 1922 it merged with T. Cooke & Sons to form Cooke, Troughton & Simms.
Cooke, Troughton & Simms was a British instrument-making firm formed in York in 1922 by the merger of T. Cooke & Sons and Troughton & Simms.
Jesse Ramsden FRS FRSE was a British mathematician, astronomical and scientific instrument maker. His reputation was built on the engraving and design of dividing engines which allowed high accuracy measurements of angles and lengths in instruments. He produced instruments for astronomy that were especially well known for maritime use where they were needed for the measurement of latitudes and for his surveying instruments which were widely used for cartography and land survey both across the British Empire and outside. An achromatic eyepiece that he invented for telescopes and microscopes continues to be known as the Ramsden eyepiece.
Marcin Odlanicki Poczobutt was a Polish–Lithuanian Jesuit, astronomer and mathematician. He was professor of Vilnius University for over 50 years, serving as its rector from 1780 to 1799. The crater Poczobutt on the Moon is named after him.
The Ramsden surveying instruments are those constructed by Jesse Ramsden and used in high precision geodetic surveys carried out in the period 1784 to 1853. This includes the five great theodolites—great in name, great in size and great in accuracy—used in surveys of Britain and other parts of the world. Ramsden also provided the equipment used in the measurement of the many base lines of these surveys and also the zenith telescope used in latitude determinations.
Sir George Augustus William Shuckburgh-Evelyn, 6th Baronet was a British politician, mathematician and astronomer.
Chester Moore Hall was a British lawyer and inventor who produced the first achromatic lenses in 1729 or 1733 . He used the achromatic lens to build the first achromatic telescope, a refracting telescope free from chromatic aberration.
Thomas Zebrowski was a Jesuit architect, mathematician, and astronomer. He was instrumental in establishing and funding the Observatory of Vilnius University. Marcin Odlanicki Poczobutt was among his students.
The Shuckburgh telescope or Shuckburgh equatorial refracting telescope was a 4.1 inches (10.4 cm) diameter aperture telescope on an equatorial mount completed in 1791 for Sir George Shuckburgh (1751–1804) in Warwickshire, England, and built by British instrument maker Jesse Ramsden (1735–1800). It was transferred to the Royal Observatory, Greenwich in 1811 and the London Science Museum in 1929. Even though it has sometimes not been regarded as particularly successful, its design was influential. It was one of the larger achromatic doublet telescopes at the time, and one of the largest to have an equatorial mount. It was also known as the eastern equatorial for its location.
Jonathan Sisson was a prominent English instrument maker, the inventor of the modern theodolite with a sighting telescope for surveying, and a leading maker of astronomical instruments.
Sir Thomas Dereham, 4th Baronet, FRS, was an English baronet who spent most of his life in Italy, where he acted as an informal representative for the Old Pretender, known as James III to his supporters.
Jeremiah Sisson (1720-1783) was an English instrument maker who became one of the leaders of his profession in London. Jeremiah Sisson was the son of Jonathan Sisson, also a respected instrument maker, who trained him in the craft.
The Giuseppe S. Vaiana Astronomical Observatory is an astronomical observatory located in Palermo, Sicily, Italy, housed inside the Palazzo dei Normanni. It is one of the research facilities of the National Institute of Astrophysics. The observatory carries out research projects in the field of astronomy and astrophysics including the study of solar and stellar coronas, stellar evolution and of the supernova remnants.
William Cary was an English scientific-instrument maker. Trained under Jesse Ramsden, he produced numerous scientific instruments including mechanical calculators, measuring instruments, telescopes, microscopes, navigation and survey equipment.
Anita McConnell (1936–2016) PhD, JP, was a writer on the history of science and a curator of oceanography and geophysics at the Science Museum, London. She is most widely known for her popular Shire book on barometers but also wrote many books on the history of oceanography and British scientific instrument makers of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Mary Ramsden, née Symonds, was an English watercolour painter. In 1801, she travelled with her sister, Elizabeth Gwillim, and her sister's husband, Sir Henry Gwillim, to Madras, India. She resided in Madras until 1808, and during this time she produced a series of watercolours of local landscapes as well as a series of watercolours of Indian fish. Her letters are noteworthy for the insight they offer about life in early nineteenth-century Madras.
