The light of the sun is so intense that another method may be employed. Instead of having the plate at the focus of the object-glass we may introduce a secondary magnifier in the telescope itself, and thus obtain an enlarged image, the time necessary for its production being still so short (1
50th of a second) that nothing is lost from the disturbances of the air.
A telescope with this addition is called a photoheliograph. The first instrument of this kind was devised by Mr. De La Rue, and for many years was regularly employed in taking photographs of the sun at Kew.
Fig. 211.—Photoheliograph as erected in a Temporary Observatory for Photographing the Transit of Venus in 1874.
Some astronomers object to this secondary magnifier, and to obtain large images use very long focal lengths, and of course a siderostat is employed. In this way Professor Winlock obtained photographs of the sun which have surpassed the limits of Mr. Newall’s refractor; the negatives have a good definition, and show a considerable amount of detail about the spots; they were taken by a lens, inserted at the end of a gas-pipe forty feet long. The pipe was fixed in a horizontal position, facing the north, and at the extreme north part of it was the lens, a single one of crown glass, with no attempt to correct it. In front of it was a siderostat, moved by a clock, reflecting the light down the tube, so that the image of the sun could be focussed on the ground glass at the opposite end.
One will see the importance of shortening the time for even the brightest object. Those who are favoured with many opportunities of looking through large telescopes know that the great difficulty we have to deal with is the atmosphere; because we have to wait for definition, and the sum total of the photograph of any one particular thing depends upon these atmospheric fits. If we require to photograph an object, it will be obvious that the more fits we have, the worse it will be, because we get a number of images partially superposed which would otherwise give as good an effect as we could get by an ordinary eye observation. It is therefore most important to reduce the interval as much as possible.
CHAPTER XXXII.
CELESTIAL PHOTOGRAPHY (CONTINUED).—SOME RESULTS.
The process used should therefore be the most rapid attainable; any work on photography will give a number of processes of different degrees of rapidity, but a process that suits one person’s manipulation may prove a failure in another’s, and the general principles are the only rules suitable for all. First, the glass plate should be carefully cleaned, the collodion lightly coloured, the bath strong and neutral, certainly not acid, and the developer fairly strong. Pyrogallic acid and silver should not be used for intensifying; a good intensifier is made by adding to a solution of iodide of potassium, strength one grain to the ounce of water, a saturated solution of bichloride of mercury, drop by drop, until the precipitate at first formed ceases to be re-dissolved; use this after fixing.
Now let us inquire what has been done by this important adjunct to ordinary means of observing. We may say that celestial photography was founded in the year 1850 by Professor Bond, who obtained a daguerreotype of the moon about that date. An immense advance has been made, but not so great as there might have been if the true importance of the method had been recognized as it ought to have been; and if we study the history of the subject we find that till within the last few years we have to limit ourselves to the works of two men who, after Bond, set the work rolling. Several observers took it up for a time; but the work requires much both of time and money, and different men dropped off from time to time. There remained always steadfast one Englishman and one American—Mr. De La Rue and Mr. Rutherfurd. The magnificent work Mr. De La Rue has done was begun in 1852. He was so anxious to see whether England could not do something similar to what had been done in America, that, without waiting for a driving clock, he thought he would see whether photographs of the moon could be taken by moving the telescope by hand. He soon found that he was working against nature—that nature refused to be wooed in this way; the moon in quite a decided manner declined to be photographed, and we waited five years till Mr. De La Rue was armed with a perfect driving clock. Mr. Rutherfurd was waiting for the same thing in America.
At last, in 1857, Mr. De La Rue got a driving clock to his reflector of thirteen inches aperture, and began those admirable photographs of the moon which are now so well known. Since the above date the moon has been photographed times without number, and Mr. De La Rue has made a series which shows the moon in all her different phases. They are remarkable for the beautiful way in which the details come out in all parts of the surface. We must recollect that these pictures of which we have spoken, some of them a yard in diameter, were first taken on glass about three inches across, the image covering the central inch. At the same time the British Association granted funds for the photographic registration of sun-spots at the Kew Observatory, where the sun was photographed every day for many years.