Background
Clark was born on March 8, 1804, in Ashfield, Massachusetts, the fifth of ten children of Abram (a descendant of Thomas Clark, one of the early pilgrims of the Mayflower) and Mary Pease.
Astronomer scientist telescope maker
Clark was born on March 8, 1804, in Ashfield, Massachusetts, the fifth of ten children of Abram (a descendant of Thomas Clark, one of the early pilgrims of the Mayflower) and Mary Pease.
Nothing is known of Clark's education.
The firm Alvan Clark & Sons was founded in 1846 in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts. Three instrument makers - Alvan Clark and his sons, George Bassett and Alvan Graham - figured importantly in the great expansion of astronomical facilities that occurred during the second half of the nineteenth century. Almost every American observatory built during this period, and some observatories abroad, housed an equatorial refracting telescope, and often auxiliary apparatus as well, made by the Clarks.
Five times the Clarks made the objectives for the largest refracting telescope in the world; and the fifth of their efforts, the forty-inch lens at the Yerkes Observatory, has never been surpassed. Their optical work, which was recognized as unexcelled, was the first significant American contribution to astronomical instrument making. American telescopes had been made before, but none compared with those of European manufacture; by the end of the nineteenth century, however, partly because of the example set by Alvan Clark & Sons, several other Americans were making fine astronomical instruments that did indeed compare. In their factory at Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, Alvan, and Alvan Graham specialized in optical work, while George supervised the mechanical constructions.
Most of the telescopes produced were visual achromats, with objectives patterned after Fraunhofer’s lenses; the Clarks did not join in the contemporary mathematical search for more perfect lens configurations. The preliminary lens grinding was done by workmen using simple horizontal turntables. Then Alvan or Alvan Graham would locate the errors, usually by examining the image of an artificial star at the focus of the lens, and remove them by “local correction” - by manually retouching the offending areas. Before the development of the Hartmann test, the standard way of describing the perfection of a lens was in terms of its actual defining power. The Clarks tested their lenses by searching for new and difficult double stars.
Towards the end of his life, Alvan wrote an autobiography that is often quoted. This is the reason why the life and work of Alvan Clark is better known than that of his two sons.
On March 25, 1826, Alvan married Maria Pease and they became parents of four children (Maria Louisa and Caroline Amelia, as well as George Bassettand Alvan Graham).