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Published: 22 April 2010
by DAN CARRIER

IT has spent 100 years scanning the night sky, bringing the planets closer to the people of Hampstead. And this month, the observatory by Whitestone Pond celebrates its centenary.

The telescope, which boasts all of its original components and is still operated by hand to track celestial bodies, was donated to the Hampstead Scientific Society. 

The Society was founded  by astronomy fanatic Philip Vizard who had been told that Colonel Henry Heberden, a magistrate who lived in Hampstead, had a 10-inch telescope that he was willing to hand over to anyone who could ensure the public could use it. 

Eventually, a home was found for the telescope at the Highgate bathing ponds where it remained for 10 years before use declined, according to the Society’s archives, due to fears over the safety of people going to and fro over the Heath at night.

The Society started looking for another site, and in 1909, they found it. HSS president Doug Daniels said: “The London County Council granted a licence to build in the flagstaff enclosure north of Whitestone Pond, but this decision caused a public outcry with letters of complaint in the Times during October and November 1909. One individual complained the observatory would “spoil his view of the sun setting in a liquid glory”. The Society backed down, until its then president, a Mr C O Bartrum, had an idea: the Metropolitan Water Board had recently completed a reservoir across the road, and he suggested they put the observatory there. Costing £275, paid for by members, it opened in April 1910 in time for visitors to watch the return of Halley’s Comet. The observatory has been there ever since – although the original 10-inch telescope was eventually replaced in 1929 with the current incumbent, a six-inch refractor model.

The Society’s assistant astronomical secretary Simon Lang, a plumber by trade, first became interested in astronomy in 1985. He had signed up for a telescope-making course at Kingsway College. Then seeing the last visit of Halley’s Comet further sharpened his interest.

“A friend of mine suggested I write to Patrick Moore and ask his advice about how to get into astronomy,” said Simon. “I did, and got a nice letter back saying I should study maths and physics. I did, but I failed my exams – which is why I am an amateur astronomer.”

Simon now uses the Hampstead observatory to look at Saturn’s rings, the Moon’s craters and mountains, and Jupiter and its moons. 

He said: “It is big for an amateur’s telescope, but would have been considered a fairly serious piece of equipment back in 1910.”

Light pollution – “something the founders would not have known much about, as Hampstead was still gaslit back then,” said Simon – has meant it is increasingly hard to look at the heavens. 

He added: “But at 440 feet above sea level, the highest point in London, it is as good as anywhere.”