This is the original mounting for the 13 inch Astrographic refractor telescope.

The telescope itself was mounted in this stand at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich between 1890 and 1957, initially for use in the international astrographic project, the 'Carte du Ciel'. In 1958 both telescope and mount were moved to Herstmonceux and in 1969 a new mounting was built by Grubb-Parsons of Newcastle. The telescope with its new mount are now in Dome D at Herstmonceux Science Centre.

Stand: The mounting is made of cast iron and painted grey. It is a German style equatorial mounting with a long declination axis. There is also a driving clock mechanism consisting of a weight-driven centrifugal governor placed inside the stand.

An equatorial mounting refers to a type of frame that allows the telescope to move with the rotation of the Earth - one axis is pointed towards the celestial pole (roughly speaking towards the Pole star for the northern hemisphere), the other can then be turned so that the telescope is able to follow a star as the Earth moves. Equatorial mountings come in two main types, English and German. The English style mounting is the shape of a + sign; the German style mounting is more of a T shape.