8.201987 Brashear "Bracebridge" 4.5-inch refractor

On 25 Mar, 2020 By rosenfel@chass....

catalogue number: 8.201987;
name of artifact: “Brashear “Bracebridge” 4.5-inch refractor”;
date of production: post 1905, probably ca. 1907-1908 (according to Bart Fried, email to R.A.R. 2019 June 19);
materials of manufacture: optical glass, copper-alloy OTA, copper-alloy and cast-iron crescent-style equatorial mount with slow-motion arm, and hard-wood tripod;
maker: signed “JOHN A. BRASHEAR CO. LTD./ALLEGHENY, PA., U.S.A.” (on the mount);
provenance:
1. John A. Brashear, Urania Island, Muskoka(?);
2. Bracebridge High School ON;
3. Robert Hambleton, Annapolis MD;
condition: the artifact is all original, and shows no signs of any restoration. Its optical elements are in excellent condition. The instrument is missing its dew cap, end cap, and eyepieces. The copper-alloy tube has a dent near the objective end, and the counter weight shaft is bent
notes:
1. 4.5-inch Brashear O.G.s are much rarer than 4-inch Brashear O.G.s;
2. the original finder scope is intact (these are often absent);
3. the second owner was a Canadian institution; &
4. according to Bart Fried, this instrument is the best candidate among surviving Brashear refractors to be the instrument the Brashears kept on Urania Island for stargazing (private communication 2020 January 27);
literature:
- John A. Brashear Company Ltd., Catalogue: Optical, Physical, Astrophysical and Astronomical Instruments—1911 (Pittsburgh PA: John A. Brashear Company Ltd., 1911), pp. 4, 7-8 (4.5-inch O.G. in cell is $125, and an equatorially-mounted 4.5-inch refractor is $325);
- John A. Brashear, The Autobiography of the Man Who Loved the Stars, ed. W. Lucien Scaife (New York: The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 1924).