An etching of a view of the interior of the Great Room (now called the Octagon Room) in the Royal Observatory at Greenwich. Many of the Observatory's principal instruments, including refracting telescopes and quadrants designed by Robert Hooke, were housed here. Three astronomers are shown using the instruments in the room, watched over by portraits of their royal patrons, Charles II and James, Duke of York. A ship on the River Thames is seen through the left-hand window. Inscribed at lower left: PROSPECTUS INTRA CAMERAM STELLATAM.

The Royal Observatory at Greenwich was founded on 22 June 1675, not for the pursuit of pure science, but in the quest to find a reliable method for determining longitude at sea. Its foundation followed the advice of a Royal Commission set up to determine if investment should be made in the field of astronomy. The Observatory became the first state-sponsored scientific establishment. Soon after its completion Sir Jonas Moore, Surveyor General of the Board of Ordnance, commissioned a series of etchings (entitled Ichnographia speculae Regiae Grenovici exquisite facta) of Greenwich, the Observatory and its instruments from Francis Place, after drawings by the topographical draughtsman Robert Thacker. This etching appeared as plate 2 in that publication.

Text adapted from Charles II: Art & Power, London, 2017