Photograph (Albumen Print) of the Observatory of A. A. Common at Ealing, 1880

Albumen print mounted on card, View of the observatory of A. A. Common, in the back garden of his house at Ealing, near London, consisting of a building with sliding roof housing his 18-inch reflecting telescope, and an unusual revolving shed of wood and corrugated metal housing his 36-inch reflector. Both buildings are closed up in this photograph. A small child and several cats are in the garden lower right.

This image is the fourth in a set of four photographs (Inv. 12710-12713) taken of A.A. common's observatory in 1880. Andrew Ainslie Common (1841-1903), an amateur astronomer, first established an observatory in his garden at Ealing in 1874, ordered an 18-inch mirror in 1878, constructing the telescope in which it was mounted himself, and completed the telescope and building for a 36-inch mirror in 1880, when these four photographs (12710 to 12713) were taken. The smaller telescope appears (from the photographs) to be housed in a converted garden shed or greenhouse; the larger is contained in a revolving, semi-slide-off shelter of highly innovative design, anticipating later arrangements for very large reflectors. The telescope's main purpose was photographic, and Common obtained important photographs with it of the Great Comet of 1881, and in 1883 of the Orion nebula. However, he sold it in 1885 to make way for an even larger one, with which he was not so successful.