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Rare image of William Herschel's 40-foot telescope, also known as the Great Forty-Foot telescope a reflecting telescope constructed between 1785 and 1789 at Observatory House in Slough, England, from a rare geographical work published in Boston by Duncan Bradford.
This was the largest telescope in the world for 50 years and was used to discover Enceladus and Mimas, the 6th and 7th moons of Saturn. The structure remained until it was dismantled in 1840 by William Herschel's son John Herschel.
The image appeared in The Wonders of the Heavens, being a popular view of astronomy, including a full illustration of the mechanism of the heavens; embracing the sun, moon, and stars, with descriptions of the planets, comets, fixed stars, double stars, the constellations, the galaxy, or Milky-Way, the zodiacal light, aurora borealis, or northern lights, meteors, clouds, falling stars, aërolites, &c. : Illustrated by numerous maps and engravings, published in Boston by Duncan Bradford, Samuel Griswold, Samuel Goodrich and John B. Russell in 1837.
The engravers for the work are James Archer and George W. Boynton.
