Meudon Great Refractor
Meudon Great Refractor (also known as the Grande Lunette) is a double telescope with lenses (83 cm + 62 cm), in Meudon, France. It is a twin refracting telescope built in 1891, with one visual and one photographic, on a single square-tube together on an equatorial mount, inside a dome. The Refractor was built for the Meudon Observatory, and is the largest double doublet (twin achromat) refracting telescope in Europe, but about the same size as several telescopes in this period, when this style of telescope was popular. Other large telescopes of a similar type include the James Lick telescope (91.4), Potsdam Great Refractor (80+50 cm), and the Greenwich 28 inch refractor (71.1 cm).
| Alternative names | Grande Lunette |
|---|---|
| Part of | Meudon Observatory |
| Location(s) | Meudon, Hauts-de-Seine, Île-de-France, Metropolitan France, France |
| Telescope style | refracting telescope double telescope |
Institutionally it was part of the Meudon Observatory, which later became integrated with the Paris observatory.
The Great Refractor was used for research well into the 1980s, after nearly a century of use. In the 21st century it was renovated and re-opened for public outreach.
The telescope is noted for being used to disprove the theory of Martian canals, which was a popular story in the late 19th century.
The telescope lenses were made by the Henry Brothers, and the mounting was made by Gautier.