Historical Scientific Instruments

Divisional Holdings in
Astronomy, Survey and Navigation

The Yale Peabody Museum’s Division of Historical Scientific Instruments boasts several astronomical, navigational and survey instruments of notoriety, including a Hartmann astrolabe from the 16th century. The collection also houses three 18th century armillary spheres and two tellurions.

Some instruments, while being splendid examples of their own type, are also connected to illustrious moments in Yale’s scientific history. For example:

• A Dolland achromatic refracting telescope (made in London in 1830) used by Professor Denison Olmsted and Elias Loomis in 1835 to first observe the reappearance of Halley’s comet in America.
  
• Elias Loomis’s sextant (Banks of London, 1835). With this instrument Loomis made the first precise determination of the latitude of New Haven and determined the latitude and longitude of the Yale steeple.
  

Other items of interest include:

• A refracting telescope made by Banks (Bancks) of London, early 19th century.
• A Burt & Watson solar compass.
  
• A variety of heliostats.
  
• Harrison’s coast navigator by H. Hughes & Son
  
• A mariner’s sextant E. & G.W. Blunt, New York
  
• Astronomical lantern slides made by George Ellery Hale (1868–1938), the inventor of the spectroheliograph.
  

The Yale Peabody Museum’s collections are available to legitimate researchers for scholarly use. Loans are issued to responsible individuals at established institutions. Loans and access to the collection can be arranged through the Collections Manager.

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