89
a “better representation of the surface of the Moon than
any drawing.” These results were considered modest to
doubters. Even though it was used for ten years until
1850, as the only technique and device on which capable
of capturing images of the Moon and Sun, one is forced
admit that the daguerreotype rendered little service to
Astronomy. The success of the images of Whipple and
Bond, like the advent of the albumen-on-glass negative
(experiments of Niépce de Saint-Victor in France in
51, or of Whipple and Bond in Harvard in 53) and later
the collodion, contributed nevertheless to the rebirth of
developments in the fi eld of astronomical photography.
The numerous experiments, actually, were conducted
around the time of the total eclipse of July 28, 1851,
and subsequently, the technology existed to capture it.
Important for England and John Herschel in particular,
a committee was created especially for this occasion,
and at Harvard and in Italy around Père Secchi, the as-
tronomers of these colleges were abound. In the British
Isles photographs thus far remained exclusively created
from the daguerreotype technique, and the advent of
collodion marked the beginning period of great activ-
ity, and observatories multiplied. Among the numerous
astronomers of the period, like Airy, Struve, Hartnupp
Lord Rosse, J.B Reade, the principal fi gure was that of
the amateur astronomer and director of printing works,
Warren De La Rue, who, since 1851, used photography
to document the skies at the end of his observation.
Built and installed since 1858 at the observatory of
Royal Astronomical Society, in Kew, an instrument
called the photohéliographe, which had 1.50 meter
long focal glasses, a clock, and a diaphragm or sliding
apparatus, which controlled the maximum duration of
light, allowed astronomers from day to day, the ability
to take photographs of the sun, up to 10 centimetres in
diameter. Giving the position and the solar size of the
tasks, the fi rst step towards this “history of the Sun” was
headed by John Herschel. During the 1860s, nearly 3000
stereotypes of the sun were taken.
It was on the same principle and also using a pho-
tohéliographe that Warren de la Rue, photographer of
the Royal Astronomical Society in Spain, obtained his
images of the solar protuberance at the time of the total
eclipse of the sun of July 18, 1860. The comparison
of the stereotypes he took on this occasion with those
taken at the same time some 400 kilometers away by the
father Angelo Secchi of the observatory of the Romain
College, made it possible to prove for the fi rst time with
certainty, not only the existence, but the origin of these
solar phenomena. The photographs taken in Spain on
this occasion, undoubtedly seemed the fi rst true success
of astronomical photography, and thus closed a chapter
opened in 1842 by Alessandro Majocchi in Milan and a
decade punctuated by unfruitful attempts in this fi eld.
Another uncontested Master of lunar photography
and the sky since 1856, was the amateur New Yorker,
Lewis Morris Rutherfurd. Like Warren De La Rue,
Rutherfurd was concerned with publishing his work
in the United States as well as in Europe. His work, in
fact, went well beyond the scientifi c community and
was published in various formats such large mounted
prints, cartes-de-visite, stereoscopic views, and albums
like Le Soleil de Secchi. Presented regularly at the
World Fairs, his images of the Sun and especially of
the Moon, taken using achromatic lenses of his own
design, were often spectacular and greeted with public
success. The scientifi c community remained divided on
their actual value for in spite of the undeniable progress
achieved in twenty years, much of these stereoscopic
views remained indeed less detailed than a number of
likenesses drawn by hand, although these images were
much less detailed than the photographs of the lunar
surfaces, illustrating the work of James Nasmyth and
James Carpenter. However, these images were published
because of their detail, but were actually achieved by
photographing plaster models of the moon.
During the years 1850–70, the astronomer, with
the use of the telescope, was able to explore the stellar
universe. This sphere of activity for the photographer,
in spite of technical diffi culties, remained limited toHenry, Paul. Photographie Lunaire, Come Sud, 29 Mars 1890.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Rolf Mayer, 1995
(1995, 125). Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.