Seealso:Conceptual Photography; Evans, Walker;
Moholy-Nagy, La ́szlo ́; Museums: United States;
The Internet and Photography
Further Reading
Castleman, Riva.A Century of Artists Books. New York
City: Museum of Modern Art, 1994.
Drucker, Johanna.The Century of Artists’ Books. New
York City: Granary Books, 1995.
Eaton, Timothy.Books as Art. Boca Raton, Florida: Boca
Raton Museum of Art, 1991.
Goldschmidt, Lucien, and Naef, Weston. The Truthful
Lens: A Survey of the Photographically Illustrated Book
1844–1914. New York: The Grolier Club, 1980.
Kenny, Lorraine. ‘‘On Artists’ Book Publishing.’’ After-
image, vol. 12 (March 1985).
Klima, Stefan.Artists Books: A Critical Survey of the Lit-
erature. New York: Granary Books, 1998.
Lippard, Lucy.Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art
Object from 1966 to 1972. Berkeley: University of Cali-
fornia Press, 1997.
Moeglin-Delcroix, Anne.Esthetique du livre d’artiste 1960–
1980. Paris: Editions Jean-Michel Place, 1997.
Rolo, Jane, and Ian Hunt, eds.Book Works: A Partial
History and Sourcebook. London: Book Works, 1996.
Trend, David. ‘‘At the Margins: Artists’ Books in the ‘80s.’’
Afterimage, vol. 13, no. 1 & 2 (1985).ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY
The night sky has been observed and its move-
ments documented for thousands of years. Nu-
merous symbolic visual paintings and carvings
are found around the world as well as manmade
solar and lunar calendars. But a true image of a
celestial body was as fleeting as catching the
moon’s reflection in a bucket of water. The history
of astrophotography began in 1838 when the
French stage painter, Louis Daguerre, used his
invention of a photographic plate to capture an
image of the moon. The photographic plate con-
sisted of a silver coated copper plate, which after
taking a photograph was exposed to vaporized
magnesium, followed by immersing the plate into
sodium thiosulfate to fix the image and dissolve
the unused silver iodide by rinsing the plate with
hot water. This process was dubbed the Daguer-
reotype process. The image of the moon, however,
was not very clear.
Wet Collodion Process
The Daguerreotype was used up until 1851, when a
new process called Collodion or ‘‘Wet Plate’’ pro-
cess was invented by a Frenchman named G. Le
Gray and introduced by Frederick Scott-Archer.
The Collodion process quickly became the pre-
ferred process of choice by astrophotographers.
Due to the sensitivity of the plate—five to ten
times more sensitive than Daguerrotypes—the
exposure time was much shorter. The only draw-
back was that the plate had to be used immediately
after it was made.
A year later, following the introduction of the
wet plate process, an amateur English astronomer,
Warren de la Rue, used the wet plate process in
capturing images of the moon. By using a 13-inch
metallic reflector telescope and hand moving the
plate every 10 to 30 seconds he was able to capture
the desired images of the moon, which were later
displayed in 1853 at the Royal Astronomical
Society meeting.Dry Emulsions
Another field of study that became intertwined with
astrophotography was that of spectroscopy. Scien-
tist realized during the 1880s that the light spectrum
emitted by stars and planets contained information
about the stars’ chemical components. Spectroscopy
did not become practical until the invention of the
dry plate. In 1871, Dr. R.L. Maddox, an English-
man, produced the first positive dry emulsion plate
by using a gelatin rather than using a glass base for
the plate. Three years later in 1874, the negative dry
emulsion plate was made by Johnston and Bolton.
Dry plates could be made and stored until needed as
well as being 100 times more sensitive than the wetARTISTS’ BOOKS