The Great Melbourne Telescope sketched in the Adelaide Post , 19 May 1868.   From many years from 1869 onwards, the City of Melbourne could boast of having the largest steerable telescope in the world. Known as the Great Melbourne Telescope, it was truly large with a total weight of 10 tonnes and a tube that was nine-metres long. The Irish telescope makers Thomas and Howard Grubb of Dublin, had built the huge telescope, under the supervision of a committee of eminent British

Unless otherwise indicated the photographs on this website can be reproduced with acknowledgement of the photographer and source (where shown) and 'courtesy of the History of Australian Astronomy Chapter (HAAC)'. Sir Thomas Brisbane, then governor of NSW, established Parramatta Observatory in 1821. Initially, its astronomers observed star positions with a transit telescope that provided right ascensions and a mural circle that provided star declinations. A transit circle, an