Telescope Floor Standing by Piet G. Meesters, 1930s

This beautiful floor standing telescope, 60mm f/15 NEDOPTIFA, dates from the 1930s and was made by Piet G. Meesters. One of the most famous Dutch amateur astronomers of the last century was Piet G. Meesters (1887-1964) from Halfweg, The Netherlands. In the days when amateur astronomy was much more of a niche than it is today, Meesters built his own telescopes and even his own observatory in his backyard. He quickly became a big name in the small astronomy world, and the telescopes he built have now become real collector’s items. The telescope is made of brass, the column stand is made of heavy cast iron, both can be dated in the 1930s. T he directional telescope is more probably from the 60ties. This scope has a altazimuth mount so it is very easy to target objects in the sky. This scope is suitable to look into the sky at the moon and stars. The telescope has an upside-down image. Nothing wrong with that just the optical configuration from the manufacture. You can buy adapters to correct this. PS: Despite the fact that you can argue, quite rightly, that there is no ‘up’ in space – what’s the right way up in the northern hemisphere appears upside down from the southern hemisphere, after all – it is still useful to know why some telescopes show things one way round and others show them differently, and how to ‘correct’ things for your comfort.