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At school... in year 11 some of us found the objective of an 1880 4.5" Clarke refractor in a cupboard the chemistry lab... after asking around we discovered the rest of it in pieces and spent the next year carefully restoring it.
It turns out this was the first telescope Colonel Oddie set up at Mt Stromlo, which he donated to the school in 1926 when he replaced it with the 9" refractor which bore his name at Stromlo, until the observatory was burnt out.
That 4.5" was a wonderful learning experience as it had perfect f/16 optics, and gave beautiful views of the planets. It had a gorgeous phosphor-bronze mount with a weight-driven clockwork drive with a governor, with an 8" diameter worm wheel with 1440 teeth, and setting circles with verniers that read to 15 minutes of arc.
By the time I left in year 12 we had it set up semi permanently on a tripod in a roll-off shed, and it was fine scope for visual use.
I have never seen a scope like it since, and I hope it still exists as it is now the sole piece of history from the original days of Colonel Oddie and the beginning of Mt Stromlo.
I then started to build my own, mostly Newtonians, for which I ground and polished a few mirrors.... but not anymore.
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