At first it seemed that the gun was some sort of something. Well, the truth is, how many mortars we have already studied: here is the largest-caliber weapon in the world, and this is the famous DICTATOR and the no less famous Mortar Mallet
But in fact it is …
In the middle lands of Ireland, in County Offlay, the province of Leinster, where the Kamkor and Little Brosna rivers meet, there is the city of Birr, also called Parsnonstown, by the name of the Parsons, the family of local landowners of the Crown Earls of Ross (Earls of Rosse). Their castle is the oldest inhabited "home" in the county. Since the castle is inhabited. Direct access to the castle is open only on special occasions, I can't imagine why, apparently at the special invitation of Brandon Parsons, the seventh Earl of Ross. But the surrounding estates are open all year round - you can even buy an annual subscription to visit.
Until the third Earl of Ross - William Parsons, the castle was what it usually was supposed to be - an important military and economic site. And I saw quite a few - in the 17th century I was twice under siege - once I failed to fight back. Since the end of the 18th century, the owners of the castle, tired of politics, begin to beautify the castle and the city. And in the 1836 century, Wilmam Parsons, who already inherited the castle, marries Mary Wilmer Field, a wealthy heiress from Yorkshire, and gets the opportunity to realize his scientific ambitions.
And in the distant 1845, the Irish inventor and aristocrat William Parsons built a huge telescope, the diameter of the mirror of which was more than 2 meters. The structure was erected at his Birr castle.
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The telescope was so big, especially for locals who had never seen anything like it before, that it was nicknamed "The Leviathan of Parsonstown." Leviathans were called gigantic sea monsters. For almost 70 years, this telescope remained the largest in the world, until the telescope was built in American California at the Mount Wilson Observatory in 1917. During his lifetime, William Parsons built several telescopes, and the Leviathan was his crowning achievement. The total weight of the structure exceeded three tons, and its construction took over three years.
Parsons studied comets, galaxies and various objects in space. Then it was impossible to take a picture with a telescope. Therefore, the Irishman sketched what he saw. After William's death, his son took over the operation of the telescope. The structure was destroyed in 1914 in order to hand over scrap metal for the army. In place of the original "Leviathan", now there is its exact non-working copy.