This is a wooden braced tripod with a fixed brass polar axis. The stand belonged to an important 1774 telescope whose whereabouts is unknown. The telescope was a replacement to the first ever triple achronomatic telescope and was sold to the Observatory by its maker and inventor, Peter Dollond.

In 1772 a replacement (to the first ever triple achromatic telescope made by Peter Dollond and presented to Nevil Maskelyne at the Royal Obseratory, Greenwich) was ordered from Peter Dollond for £63. This new 46 inch triple achronomatic, by far the most successful of the Royal Observatory's small telescopes, was used regularly from January 1774 until the Sheepshanks was mounted in 1838, 1084 observations of eclipses, occultations etc., being recorded in those 64 years. Thereafter, three or four observations a year are recorded up to 1860. It is possible that it was used in Hawaii for the 1874 Transit of Venus.

Telescope: The now missing telescope had an aperture of 91mm, eyepieces magnifying 204, 132, 74 and 34 times, a large achromatic object-glass micrometer and variable square apertures to measure the intensity of the light of Jupiter's satellites.

Stand: The wooden tripod stand has a polar axis and fork mounting. It is painted black all over. The brass fork mounting is not original. It is 1650 mm in height and the tripod feet spread is 680 mm.

The evolution of the telescope mounting began with the transit telescope - a telescope pivoted on two stands. This whole system was then put on a rotatable base and this became the altazimuth telescope. This base was then tilted so that it was parallel with the Earth's equatorial plane (that is perpendicular to the polar axis). This stage of which this stand here is an example, is an early type of equatorial mounting here called a polar axis and fork mounting. The polar axis referring to the tilting of the system, fork referring to the two stands on which the telescope would be pivoted.