In 1869 the observatory installed the Great Melbourne Telescope (48 inch) which at that time was the largest steerable telescope in world. There were problems with its size and image accuracy and by 1890 it was no longer used. As Melbourne increased in size the light from the city limited the use of the observatory for serious astronomy. The Great Melbourne Telescope was sold to the Mount Stromlo Observatory in Canberra in 1944. It was destroyed in a bushfire in 2003, but there are plans to rebuild it and set it up as a display at the Melbourne Observatory.