Image: Jeremiah Horrocks Observatory, Moor Park - geograph.org.uk - 557619

Description: Jeremiah Horrocks Observatory, Moor Park. Jeremiah Horrocks (1618-1641) was an English astronomer who made the first observation of a transit of Venus. (He was from Toxteth in Liverpool, but lived near Preston after dropping out of Cambridge; he appears to have no connection to the eponymous dynasty of Preston cotton magnates.) The Observatory in Moor Park was built by Preston Council and opened on June 29th 1927, the day of a total solar eclipse. The new observatory lay in the path of totality and some 30,000 people thronged on Moor Park to witness the event. The main instrument in the observatory is an 8 inch Thomas Cooke Refractor, originally acquired for the Deepdale Observatory in 1912. The Observatory now belongs to the University of Central Lancashire, and is one of the 500 synoptic weather stations around the UK that forms the climatological network of the Met Office. (Sources: Wikipedia, Preston and District Astronomical Society, University of Central Lancashire.) This picture forms part of a circular walk around Preston - continues at 557632.
Title: Jeremiah Horrocks Observatory, Moor Park - geograph.org.uk - 557619
Credit: From geograph.org.uk
Author: Patrick
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