Solar System Maps by Nick Kanas

Author:Nick Kanas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer New York, New York, NY

6.2.2 Emergence of Astrophotography

People began experimenting with photography early in the 19th Century following the development of a proper fixing agent in the late 1830s. Some of the earliest pictures produced were crude daguerreotypes of the Moon taken by Louis Daguerre (1787-1851) in 1838 and J.W. Draper (1811-1882) in 1840. In 1842, Edmond Becquerel (1820-1891) recorded the spectrum of the Sun on a daguerreotype plate. Astrophotography per se began in 1850, when W.C. Bond (1789-1859) obtained daguerreotypes of the star Vega and the Moon through the Harvard College observatory’s 38-cm refracting telescope. Later in the 1850s, Warren de la Rue (1815-1889) in England used a collodion process and a mechanically driven telescope to take both lunar and solar pictures of high quality, including stereoscopic images that allowed for a better characterization of sunspots. Spectroscopy was combined with photography in the 1860s to obtain spectra of distant stars and nebulae.

Astrophotography was on its way to becoming a mainstay of astronomical activity as improvements were made in telescopic mechanical drives, lenses, and photographic techniques and emulsions. For example, from the 1870s onwards, photographs were being made of such observations as the transit of Venus across the Sun’s surface; features on the Moon, Mars and other planets (Figure 6.6); discoveries of comets and asteroids (and a former planet, Pluto); and deep-sky objects, such as nebulae and star clusters. Since more stars, planets, and other heavenly bodies could be seen in detail in time-delayed photographs, and since permanent records could be made of planetary surface features and stellar positions relative to each other, it was logical to think that photography would be useful in celestial cartography as well. Astrophotography continues to be used today, by both professional and amateur astronomers.

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