era is mounted on the tripod and the shutter is held
open with a trigger release cord. Most 35-mm cam-
eras have a B or bulb setting to do this. This allows
the film to be exposed to low levels of evening sky
light. A large variety of wide and zoom lenses are
incorporated, depending on the object being cap-
tured. Star tracking is one of the most common and
easiest special effects to accomplish. This is where
the shutter is left open for more than 15 seconds,
thus letting star trails form on the exposed film.
Piggyback Photography
This is where the camera is connected to a tele-
scope either in a piggyback fashion or hooked up
to the eye piece of the telescope via an adapter.
Piggyback photography provides the photogra-
pher with the ability to ‘‘track’’ the stars. An
equatorial mount is used in which the rotational
axis of the tracker is aligned with the rotational
axis of the earth. This is different from an alt-
azimuth mount where the camera is mounted on
a vertical swivel so the camera may be aimed at a
star during a long exposure. This type of mount
produces an image of a star in the middle of the
photo as a dot while outlying stars show up as
arcs, which elongate the further the stars position
from the center. The arcs are a product of field
rotation, caused by the camera swivel not being
aligned with the rotational axis of the earth.
Autoguided Photography
Two types of auto guiding are popular, the use of
an off-axis guider and the use of a separate guiding
scope. Professionals usually use a CCD autoguider
or a reticle eyepiece. Reticle eyepieces used are
either standard or illuminated. With CCD software
for personal computers, an amateur astrophoto-
grapher with a hybrid telescope/camera can now
be hooked up to a personal computer and guided
through the night sky.
STACYFoxFurther Reading
Arnett, Bill.Planetary Science Spacecraft. http://seds.lpl.
arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/Spacecraft.html
(accessed May 4, 2005).
De Vacouleurs, Gerad. (trans. by R. Wright)Astronomical
Photography, from the Daguerreotype to the Electron
Camera. London: Faber & Faber, 1961.
Kodak,History of Kodak. http://www.kodak.com/about
kodak/kodakHistory/milestones78-32.html.
Malin, D. ‘‘The Developing Art of Star Photography.’’
New Scientist120 (Dec. 17, 1988), 23–28.
Milan, Wil.The Photographer’s Progress: A Short History
of Emulsion-Based Deep-Sky Photography. http://www.
astrophotographer.com.
Schirmer, A.F., and S.R. Majewski.History of Photometric
Measurements in Astronomy. http://www.astro.virginia.
edu/~afs5z/photometry.html1999(accessedMay4,2005).
Space Telescope Science Institute.Hubble Primer. http://
oposite.stci.edu/puinfo/spacecraft/Primer.EUGE
`
NE ATGET
French
Although much has been recorded about the lives
of photographers and artists who worked in Paris
during the late nineteenth and early twentieth cen-
turies, the photographer Euge`ne Atget is an excep-
tion. What little that is known about his life has
been laboriously reconstructed; however, the vast
amount of work he produced provides a record of
his accomplishments as a photographer. Bits of his
life have been pieced together from the memories of
the few people whom he chose to befriend. These
include Andre ́Calmettes, actor and motion picture
director, Man Ray, photographer, and particularly
the American photographer Berenice Abbott who
dedicated much of her time to the public recogni-
tion of Atget. Although he died virtually unknown
and never formally exhibited his work, upon his
death Atget left approximately 2000 eight by ten-
inch glass plates and almost 10,000 prints.
Orphaned at age five or six, Atget was raised by
an uncle. At a young age he signed on as a cabin
boy on a steamer bound for Uruguay, and would
later exaggerate that he had been on severalASTROPHOTOGRAPHY