Qualla: Sherwood Observatory

Sherwood Observatory: Introduction

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. The dome is held together by more than 5,000 rivets, and most of them were driven by hand. The aluminium sheets that clad it, all 120 of them, were cut and shaped on site by people who held day jobs and turned up at the weekend with measuring tapes. The main ring-beam was bent into a circle using a hydraulic jack normally reserved for lifting heavy goods vehicles. Sherwood Observatory, perched on one of the highest points in Nottinghamshire, was not built by a university or a government agency. It was built by an amateur astronomical society that decided in 1972 to make their own.

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Image: CC BY-SA 3.0

Sherwood Observatory: A Society on a Hill

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Willednic at English Wikipedia, CC BY 3.0. The Mansfield and Sutton Astronomical Society held its first meeting in February 1970, gathering at a local engineering company because that is where one of the founders worked. Within two years the members had bought a piece of high ground near Sutton-in-Ashfield. Foundations we...

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Image: Willednic at English Wikipedia | CC BY 3.0

Sherwood Observatory: Grinding the Mirror

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Duncan, CC BY 2.0. A reflecting telescope needs a precisely curved mirror, ground to within a small fraction of a wavelength of light. The society built its own grinding machine and started polishing a piece of glass in the observatory. The work took four years. Then they sent the finished mirror a...

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Image: Duncan | CC BY 2.0

Sherwood Observatory: The Telescope

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alexrk2, CC BY-SA 3.0. The main instrument is a 0.61-metre Newtonian reflector, sitting in a 6.5-metre dome. The telescope began life as a Nasmyth design but had collimation problems, so in the 1990s the society converted it to the simpler Newtonian configuration. Stepper motors drive both the focus an...

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Image: Alexrk2 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Sherwood Observatory: The Planetarium and the Reservoir

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Marcin Floryan, CC BY 2.5. Underneath the observatory, until 2023, was a Victorian water reservoir, a buried brick chamber that had been quietly sitting there for over a century. The society and Ashfield District Council recognised an opportunity. The tank was excavated, its multiple brick arches exposed a...

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Image: Marcin Floryan | CC BY 2.5