Astrodaguerreotypy

[Jon Lewis]

Has anyone tried daguerreotyping astronomical objects? I’ve seen a contemporary daguerreotype of the moon and one of a solar eclipse both by Robert Shlaer but not much else. I’m curious if people have tried capturing some fainter objects like planets, globular clusters, or galaxies. I also can’t seem to find much on the reciprocity failure of daguerreotypes beyond the fact that it exists. ” title=”Confused” />

[CasedImage]

Funny you should mention that, I was just wondering yesterday about how to satisfactorily attach my sliding box camera to a telescope, was thinking of the traditional route and do the full moon, I imagine the exposures for anything else taken "live" would be quite long.

www.CasedImage.com

[botticelli1972]

I know that a few people here in DC did a workshop quite a few years ago at the Naval Observatory, that must have happened 10-15 yrs ago. I was told they made several quality images. I do not know who lead the group only that one of the participants is a co-worker of my wife at the Smithsonian, and it was her first and only time making daguerreotypes. It is possible, and I have always believed that one of the images was published in the Susan Barger book on the science of the daguerreotype(I believe it is the lead photo to the last chapter) but this could be a miss-attribution. That image, I think states, was taken at the Naval Observatory but does not list a maker. Susan Barger’s husband is Robert Shaler who might possibly have lead the class. Someone else may have more information than I on this class from the past.-Larry

[Jon Lewis]

Thanks for the info Larry! I didn’t realize that Susan Barger was married to Robert Shlaer. I knew they were both local (to me), but didn’t really make the connection. The caption of the image you refer to is as follows:

"The moon, daguerreotyped by the Lunar Daguerreian Society, June 18, 1986, using the 24-inch reflector telescope at the United States Naval Observatory. Source: Collection of M. Susan Barger. Courtesy of M. Susan Barger, Jan Kenneth Herman, Kenneth E. Nelson, and Theodore Rafferty."

It’s an exceptionally sharp image and must be amazing in person. Yet another reason to contact Robert Shlaer and Susan Barger…

[AgNO3]

This is an excerpt from a treatise on the daguerreotype by Levi Hill (yes that Levi Hill)

[CasedImage]

I have added another link to the "Daguerre Online" section on the resources page. It is a link to biographical page on Daguerre on the Met’s website and makes mention of Daguerre’s early efforts in this area;

"Even Arago, director of the Observatoire de Paris, was reportedly surprised by a daguerreian image of the moon.
Neither Daguerre’s microscopic nor his telescopic daguerreotypes survive, for on March 8, 1839, the Diorama—and with it Daguerre’s laboratory—burned to the ground, destroying the inventor’s written records and the bulk of his early experimental works."

www.CasedImage.com

[Jon Lewis]

I realize I’m probably the only person here who’ll get excited over some spectral lines but I just read that around 1840 Draper took an image of the solar spectra on a dag plate. Since dags sensitive to the UV this led to the discovery of new lines in the solar spectra. An image is available here: photography.si.edu Also, here’s an image of the solar corona taking during a solar eclipse in 1851 by Busch and Berkowski

[Mercury]

Hello Jon,

Looks like this thread is pretty old and may be stale, but I stumbled across it on an unrelated search.

I was a member of that Lunar Daguerreian Society at the U.S. Naval Observatory in 1984-6. Susan Barger and I were the daguerreotypists. Jan K. Herman and Theodore Rafferty were the astromomical team. It was a total blast! We worked like hell very late into many nights, but it lives in my memory like it was yesterday because of the comeraderie and quality of everybody’s input. It remains one of the best experiences of my life. (Bob Shlaer was not involved… he and Susan hadn’t met yet. I was also a catalyst in their meeting in August of 1989, but that is another story.)

The history of the Lunar Daguerreian Society and the results of the First and Second Lunar Daguerreian Symposia were beautifully written by Susan and Jan, and was published as a feature-length article with many illustrations in the October, 1987 issue of “Astronomy” magazine.

During the “Second Lunar Daguerreian Symposium” when we worked with the 24-inch reflector at the USNO, our team of four was joined by Lynne Gilliland, who might be Larry/Botticelli1972’s wife’s co-worker at the Smithsonian. (I’d like to know how Lynne is, and to say Hello.) Lynne turned out to be much more valuable than a spectator and qickly became a welcome member of the team.

This effort was not a class or a workshop. We ourselves were the students, history and technology were our teachers. We did however manage to attract a lot of interest, including radio reporter Bruce Gellerman (working with US National Public Radio) who capped the First Lunar Daguerreian Symposium, complete with our frustrations and enthusiasm, in a feature segment on NPR’s flagship “All Things Considered” broadcast.

Heady days, well actually nights, indeed.

Ken Nelson

p.s. I’ve done a few experiments with diffraction gratings in direct contact with a daguereotype plate… I’ll see if I can find them. (On the hopeful side, I NEVER throw anything away. On the down-side, I never throw ANYTHING away.)

[botticelli1972]

I knew someone would have the pieces to the puzzle of that image. Lynne is still at the Smithsonian for the short term at least, she is retiring this year after a long career as a paper conservator. you should be able to find her through the SI email first initial last name @si.edu -Larry

[Andy Stockton]

I often find it a little startling when I discover something from “history” alive and well and on to new things. Thanks for telling your story. I have never done astrophotography of any kind, but find the images beautiful. For those of you with more experience I have two questions

1) Given the relatively long exposure times, is a motorized telescope that tracks the object a requirement?

2) Are any of these images done with the Becquerel process or are they always I/Br/HG?

[Mercury]

Thank you Larry, I’ll give that a try. I first met Lynne in 1981 when she was a conservator at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. I love it when that six degrees thing works.

Andy, thanks! I guess at this point I’m old enough to be historical. This renaissance is wild beyond ANYTHING I could have envisioned when I started making daguerreotypes in 1976… then, one could practically count the world’s active daguerreians on two hands. Aside from the work with our little Lunar Daguerreian Society in the 80’s, I have not done any other astronomical daguerreotypy. Given that,

Answers: 1) Yes. I would recommend a telescope with a quality auto-tracking mechanism. As I understand it, there are ones that can track both the stars and the moon (which is a more complex job because of it’s orbital path) which are within reasonable financial limits. When Ted Rafferty tracked the moon for our first successful six minute exposure, he did it with the spotting scope on the 12-inch refractor that was powerful enough in itself to see lunar features only a mile or two across.

Bob Shlaer described his outfit, which he used to produce lunar daguerreotypes much better than ours, in the 1991 Daguerreian Annual. I wonder if it would be possible to republish it here?

2) We used bromine-accelerated plates and Hg. We were working at a time when Becquerel was regarded as very slow. Good work by many people starting with Gerry Megan’s revolution might bring Becquerel plates “up to speed” for lunar work, but I’m not the person to ask. Mercury’s been in my veins since 1976 (not literally of course), I never explored Becquerel process.

[Jon Lewis]

Ken, thanks for all the information! I would have loved to join the group in the observatory and help make images on late nights. Unfortunately I would have probably been more of a burden than a help since I was only born in 1984… 😉

I found the article in Astronomy magazine and ordered a copy for myself. According to the table of contents the title is: “The Moon on a Silver Plate” by Jan K. Herman and M. Susan Barger (http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=i&id=175). When it arrives I’ll make a copy for anyone who wants one. I’ll try to track down the NPR spot as well, it’ll be interesting to hear the story. If you happen to know about when the interview with Bruce Gellerman was aired, it might make my search a little easier. NPR doesn’t seem to have much indexed before 2000.

I’m curious how you dealt with the chemistry and proximity with the observatory equipment. A lot of the chemicals can’t be too friendly with the delicate machinery and electronics. Did you sensitize before hand or did you just do everything in a separate room?

[bailun]

Ooh! /Gerry Megan’s revolution/ sounds touchingly and pathosly is hypertrophied in the American style!

Excuse, but I for a long time laughed.

Ken, please, find time and make Bdag your leader of revolution Gerard Meegan / LENIN? CHE?

It is easy for making and will not take away from you a lot of time! It is not necessary to shoot the moon, start with an apple.

I am afraid that with Bdag Gerard Meegan is possible to depart much further the moon, at once to black holes.

My experience speaks Bdag Gerard Meegan – does not work!

And the common sense speaks, that all revolutions conduct In ANYWHERE!

Please, check up it. Make it!

Whether and then there will be a necessity to do(make) such beautiful and pathos applications?

I regret, but Gerard Meegan ran ahead of a steam locomotive as at us speak.

AND BECQUEREL DAGUERREOTYPE STILL IT IS NECESSARY TO OPEN.

BAILUN / lieutenant Colombo

[Jon Lewis]

The Astronomy magazine issue containing the article “The Moon on a Silver Plate” by Jan K. Herman and M. Susan Barger arrived today. It’s a really great article so let me know (jonfoto[at]gmail.com) if you’d like a copy.

 

Attachments:

You must be logged in to view attached files.

[Mercury]

Hello Jon,

No worries. Every one of us in the dome those nights were newborns, so to speak. You’d have been right at home!

Mr. Gellerman’s “All Things Considered” segment aired on August 3, 1985, as segment no. 850803.

Chemical management was pretty easy. Since it was night, all we had to do was turn off the white lights in the dome for sensitizing. We had a portable red safelight nearby. My sensitizing boxes release such a tiny amount with each slide that we never smelled it, and iodine and bromine are odious at infinitesimal levels. The vast space of air in the dome (and the huge opening for the telescope) dissipated it immediately. As can be seen from the photos in the article, we did have my portable fume hood in the dome for the mercury pot, which was vented directly to the outdoors through a port hole in the building.

Glad you got your copy of “Astronomy” so quickly! And I’m glad you enjoyed the article. I just re-read it myself a few days ago and was transported. Susan and Jan did a wonderful job. I’m sitting here in Seattle (of all places for this weather) on the same kind of clear, hot, sticky, sultry night, looking at the same kind of reddish 3/4 moon that we looked at all those years ago. All I need are 4 crazy friends and a big telescope and the illusion is complete…

[Mercury]

Hello Jon,

 

Oh, we looked so confident and rock-bandish in the photo published in Astronomy! Compare that with the tentative and perhaps overly serious faces we wore for the “first” official portrait of the Lunar Daguerreian Society at the start of the 1985 season.

 

That big 12 inch refractor required a MUCH larger dome than the modern 24 inch reflector, hence the sense of space. We got better images with the modern telescope, but being in the big dome with that venerated telescope, just the four of us in the deep of the night, was a much preferred and very moving experience.

 

Attachments:

You must be logged in to view attached files.

[Jon Lewis]

Ken, thanks for posting the image. Refractors have a certain elegance to them that I don’t think any other scope quite measures up to… even if the others work better in the end. The Lunar Daguerreian Society had some amazing opportunities!

I hope I’ll be able to use any largeish observatory for astrodags. I’m curious to see if it’s possible to capture one of the brighter planets. Jupiter is pretty bright but it’s not really reflecting the right wavelengths…

[Jon Lewis]

While wandering through the first issue of The Daguerreian Journal (November 1, 1850) today I ran across a brief article talking about stellar and lunar daguerreotypes. I hadn’t realized that anything besides the Moon and Sun had been daguerreotyped. It would appear the star Vega has as well!

The lunar test plate Humphrey describes can be seen here: http://preserve.harvard.edu/exhibits/daguerreotype/detail07.html

[Robert Shlaer]

Dear Demented Daguerreian Lunatics,

I have just had this forum brought to my attention, and would be glad to have my article on Lunar Daguerreotypy (rhymes with lobotomy) reprinted here.

I am done with the Lunar phase of my life, but if anybody would like to continue to pursue it, I have for sale the complete rig, telescope, guide scope, drive corrector, 4×5 custom astro camera, shutter timer, and everything else needed. Bulky and heavy, so you wold need to pick it up, at which time I can show you how to use it. Anybody who is interested should contact me at:

easterlyviews@earthlink.net

To answer some questions: the moon is an object in bright sunlight, although its luminance varies with phase. My telescope with barlow lens was about f:64, and a full moon exposure was around 2 minutes, 4 minutes for first or third quarter. In trying to get crescent moon images, the exposure was as long as 15 min using hypersensitized plates, which is about my limit of endurance using a guide scope and manual drive corrector. The moon’s apparent motion is very irregular. The automatic drive correctors with which I am familiar need a tiny object to use as the guide reference, so I do not believe they can work with the moon. Even though there are small bright details such as illuminated mountain tops near the terminator, they change continuously during an exposure as the illumination angle changes. It is hard enough to deal with one of them visually, trying to decide where the alignment point should be as the appearance changes.

Exposure times over 15 minutes are in my experience negated by reciprocity failure, at least with Hg developed plates. Get around many of the problems by making small images, say about 1″ diameter, instead of the approximately 3″ I was doing.

Planets are a loosing proposition unless you want a very small image, which will probably be indistinguishable from minor plate flaws. Not much point in that. You could do better with the point of a pin.

Good luck, anybody,

Bob Shlaer

[Gmeegan]

Not sue what you mean by stating “My experience speaks Bdag Gerard Meegan – does not work!”. I am Gerard Meegan and I have
years of plates that say it does work. If it is not working for you let me know and I can help. Sincerely.Oh for those of you who do not know, I am not dead, just living a peaceful life in Thailand.

[Author]

Posts