It was thrilling to land at Greenwich subway station. Thrilling because we are at the place which has a line defined which is reference of global timing difference between countries. It was unbelievable for me to have arrived on this place. Came out of the station and started walking towards the Greenwich observatory. GPS showed that the medieval commercial ship Cutty Shark is nearer so we followed that route.
Greenwich is well crowded town and I see lot of crowded streets and shops full with life. This sends a feeling as pilgrimage. This is the place where Henry VIII was born. But his palace almost wiped out in fire and now we see only a wall with his photo as his birth place.
The Greenwich meridian separates East from West. Over land it crosses England, France, Spain, Algeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo, Ghana and Antarctica. By 1880s several countries had their own meridians based on their national observations. After much confusion, representatives from different countries attended a conference in Washington to choose a single meridian. With majority of shipping companies already using British chart based on Greenwich meridian decided on meridian of Greenwich. But after the satellites technology the mobiles can find the exact meridian which actually is 100 meters either side. The reason is that satellites takes account of geography of Earth also to calculate it.
Time taken to visit
One full day
Time taken to visit
There are some palaces, Old Royal Observatory, Queen’s House, University of Greenwich, Greenwich park, Queen Anne Court, Royal college of Navy, Cutty Sark, old sea port, a tunnel, National Maritime museum.
It is a great time pass- one full day or two in Greenwich.
Inside observatory is the story and evidences of development of Astrology by British astronomers in medieval times. Almost all history of the works is recorded here to determine time for helping ships, trajectory of comets, stars and planets. The residence where Astronomer Royals designated by kings are preserved into museum of their daily life and works. Here I describe as a tourist a few equipment developed here and which saw further developments with time and knowledge. Of course a tourist can not be expected to understand these in detail so this description is as I understood from the signage boards displayed there.
Armillary spheres – One of the oldest instrument to find the time crudely. It was first used in China in Han Dynasty (2nd Century BC) and Greece in 3rd century BC. It is made of rings which represent important lines on our globe and in center is Earth.
Flam Steed’s Well Telescope (1676) – He was first Astronomer Royal appointed by king Charles II. The world’s first zenith telescope was made by Robert Hooke and used by him in 1669 in an attempt to provide observational evidence of the Copernican theory that the Earth was orbiting the Sun. Later this 100 feet Zenith telescopes made by Flam Steed in 1679 was an attempt to measure the distances to the stars. This was least successful attempt at Greenwich. People used to sit inside well 100 feet below in of telescope in well.
William Herschel telescope – 240 Years Ago: Astronomer William Herschel Identifies Uranus as the Seventh Planet but its dimness and small size led to it being classified as a star. Later it was found to be planet in 1860.
He built a 40-foot telescope, largest in world that time, under the patronage of King George III in 1789. Cost pound 4000. This did not prove to be very useful.
Dolphin Sundial – Designed by Christopher Daniel. We can see the marks of time interval calibration with minimum 10 minutes.
Edmond Halley (1656-1742) – He was second Astronomer Royal in 1720. He created catalogue of Southern Stars based on his observations from St. Halena. He also plotted movement of moon wrt stars. He also investigated the orbits of comets and paid for the publication of mathematician Isaac newton’s work on gravitational theory.
8-feet-mural-quardant– Halley used it to measure angular height of stars. But the heavy weight of iron and brass caused distortion in structure and measurements were so not proper.
Bradley, Third Astronomer Royal (1692-1762) – He setup a telescope in this room and defined a new meridian to review and correct data on over 3000 stars. In 1801 this meridian was used as longitude 0 degree.
Seventh Astronomer royal George Biddel Airy (1801-92) defined new meridian with greater accuracy. This is being used today as reference.
IMG_4401-flamsteed-house – 10 Astronomer Royal lived in Flamsteed house owned by Govt from 1676 to 1948. to do
In this India’s Bombay is shown (not Delhi) as 72 degree east. Means Bombay is 4 hrs 48 min ahead if GMT. Total took 1750AD to 1850AD to accurately determine exact location after lot of experiments.
I did not get opportunity for snap here so I took on other end of line
Epilogue
For obvious reasons Greenwich is a must see place and thousands of tourists visit as I can see the day I visited. People from all over world are curious to take their photos at meridian line in front of royal observatory. There was incredible enthusiasm and proud in taking photo here. This place is witness of time calculation and setting up standard time around globe due to continuous hard work of royal astronomers. Now we are working on clock which will be as accurate as 1 second in billions of years using atomic ion-trap technology. There are few more landmark places such as medieval ship Cutty Shark, Greenwich market since medieval time, Queen Mary house, National maritime museum and Greenwich park to spend one full day easily. While returning plan your train journey to get down at Canary Wharf which is famous for Indian film shootings around the subway station. I personally feel proud to visit this place.
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