Seeing the Universe
before 1610 - naked eye astronomy 1608 - Galileo's hand held telescopes 1673 - Hevelius' long telescopes 1780 - Herschel's large reflectors 1838 - Meridian Circles 1845 - Rosse's Leviathian1890 - Barnard's camera
1923 - The Hooker 100 inch 1948 - The Palomar 200 inch 1990 - The Hubble Space Telescope 1998 - The Keck 10 metre pair 2000 - The VLT array 2015 - Planning for the JWST 2020? - Planning the OWL How much further?In the early 1890s, Edward Barnard pioneered the technique of using photographic plates to soak up light over many hours and thereby record astronomical details invisible to the eye. He attached a cheap, wide field portrait lens to a wooden box camera and used it to photograph comets over a succession of nights. In 1892, a comet that was not visible by eye emerged on one of his plates - the first to be discovered photographically.
When Barnard turned his camera to the Milky Way, he procured remarkably clear
pictures that showed the galaxy's dark dust clouds and faint star clusters for
the first time. His images were the result of lengthy time exposures made by
guiding the telescope by hand to keep the star field precisely in view. Capturing
such images required hours of unwavering concentration that strained eye, mind
and body. The first photographic portraits of the Milky Way that he made are
permanent reminders of Barnard's skill and discipline.
Yerkes Virtual Museum
Fish-eye lens image of Barnard at Lick Observatory,
guiding a telescope to make a time exposure with his box camera
(Yerkes Observatory)