Astronomers were quick to recognize the potential for photography to aid and publicize their work. At the 1862 World Exhibition in London, stereoscopic "three-dimensional" photographs of lunar craters and sunspots were a great success. The needs of astronomers also helped to drive photographic technology. Images took so long to develop with the earliest photographic chemicals that fast-moving shutters were not necessary for ordinary photography. However, they were invented by the Englishman Warren de la Rue (1815-1889) to enable photographs of the Sun to be taken without burning the film.
Photographic images were found to have a number of advantages over direct observation, in addition to the obvious benefit as records of permanence and portability. Photographic film can detect finer gradations of light than can the eye, allowing greater detail to be observed. Film is also sensitive to parts of the electromagnetic spectrum outside the human visual range, such as ultraviolet, and can be adjusted to emphasize particular wavelengths or colors. With a long exposure, film can detect objects far too faint for the human eye to see. Eventually photography became so essential to astronomical observation that professional astronomers rarely observed directly with the eye.
This is a free page. This page contains 184 words. This
article contains 2,169 words (approx. 7 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Article with our A New View of the Universe: Photography and Spectroscopy in Nineteenth-Century Astronomy Access Pass.
