From Fragments to a museum display: restoration of a Gautier meridian circle

Details From Fragments to a museum display: restoration of a Gautier meridian circle From Fragments to a museum display: restoration of a Gautier meridian circle

Jul 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009jahh...12..108g&link_type=abstract

Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage (ISSN 1440-2807), Vol. 12, No. 2, p. 108 - 118 (2009).

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Gautier Meridian Circle, Restoration, Scientific Instruments, Museum Of Science And Technology

Scientific paper

The Museu de Astronomia e Ciências Afins (MAST), which opened to the public in 1985, is a research institute of the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology. One of its main activities is to preserve its collections, especially the most important one, its collection of scientific instruments, which grants MAST its identity as a museum of science and technology. Among the 2,000 objects in the collection there is a Gautier meridian circle that has a 190-mm diameter objective lens and a focal distance of 2,400 mm, with its axis aligned east-west. It should be noted that this instrument was at great risk of being lost to the collection, as it had been left dismantled since the 1960s, and the top part of the dome that sheltered it had been demolished in the 1980s, leaving just a vestibule and the base of the dome, which was in danger of completely collapsing. The intervention philosophy applied was not to put the instrument back in working order, but to allow it to be viewed and understood by the public within a coherent display space. As for the dome, a shelter was built for the instrument using a metal cover of a similar volume and appearance to the original, but with a different function, i.e. it is no longer designed to permit astronomical investigations, but rather to protect the exhibition space and merge harmoniously with the rest of the listed architectural complex. This paper presents information about the history of this meridian circle and its restoration, as well as about the Imperial Observatório do Rio de Janeiro/Observatório Nacional where this instrument was originally used.

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