In 1871 he acquired a reflecting telescope of 12 inches (30.5 cm) aperture and set it up in a dome in the gardens of Daramona House near the village of Streete.
He used it to experiment on the photography of the Moon with wet plates and also began to study solar radiation using thermopiles.
The result of their measurements was an effective temperature of about 8000 °C for the Sun which, after correction to deal with absorption in the Earth's atmosphere, gave a value of 6590 °C, compared to the modern value of 6075 °C.
His astronomical findings were published in a series of memoirs such as Experimental Observations on the Effective Temperature of the Sun.
His son donated his telescope to London University, where it was used for research and teaching, finally becoming a feature in Liverpool museum.