transit instrument

In astronomy, transit instruments are used for the precise observation of star positions.

At the west end of the building was a transit instrument room with a north-south slit in the roof.

Ptolemy claims his solar observations were on a transit instrument set in the meridian.

The only telescope in the establishment when he took charge was the transit instrument, and to this he vigorously devoted himself.

Above the room is a Warner & Swasey celestial transit instrument, on its own pier.

Observation of meridian transits was once very important for timekeeping purposes (see transit instrument).

He invented the transit instrument.

These methods were very inconvenient and in 1690 Ole Rømer invented the transit instrument.

He invented the combined transit instrument and zenith telescope that was used to determine latitude, including that of Hawaii.

In 1860-61 he mounted a transit instrument, constructed a chronograph, and made the first accurate determination of the latitude of the college observatory.

For instance, a surveyor's theodolite can function as a transit instrument if its telescope is capable of a full revolution about the horizontal axis.

The NRT is a transit instrument of the unusual Kraus-type design, with two mirrors.

In 1721, however, he obtained a grant of 500 pounds from the Board of Ordnance, and accordingly a transit instrument was erected in the same year.

As Plumian Professor he was responsible for installing and adjusting the transit instruments and clocks at the Cambridge Observatory.

Kraus-type telescopes are transit instruments, where the flat primary reflects radio light towards the spherical secondary, which focuses it towards a mobile focal carriage.

A four-inch equatorial, a three-inch transit instrument, and four pendulum clocks with two chronometers, were also procured from the observatory at Modena.

However, by March 1854, a 30-inch transit instrument, a good astronomical clock and a time-ball apparatus had been added, and a few meteorological instruments were also obtained.

The transit instrument was in Cape Town so a telegraph was used to relay time signal from Cape Observatory.

Ramsden's transit instruments were the first which were illuminated through the hollow axis; the idea was suggested to him by Prof. Henry Ussher in Dublin.

A Grubb 8 inch aperture equatorial refracting telescope presented by Escombe and a 3 inch transit instrument was purchased by the government.

The similar transit instrument, transit circle or transit telescope is likewise mounted on a horizontal axis, but the axis need not be fixed in the east-west direction.

A photographic plate was placed in the focus of a transit instrument and a number of short exposures made, their length and the time being registered automatically by a clock.

Columbia's Rutherfurd Observatory was started during his tenure, with a twelve inch Clarke refractor telescope and a transit instrument emplaced atop Pupin Hall.

Prior to that, it was defined by a succession of earlier transit instruments, the first of which was acquired by the second Astronomer Royal, Edmond Halley in 1721.

The fact that he had a transit instrument signifies that he must have been doing timings of the passage of stars across the meridian, and was not just a casual observer.