'The Welshman'
Isaac Roberts (1829 - 1904)
“Isaac Roberts was one of the great pioneers of Deep Space Astrophotography. His images of objects such as the Great Andromeda Spiral and the Pinwheel Galaxy are even to this day masterpieces, which many a modern imager would be proud to have taken.”
Roots
Isaac Roberts was a Welshman all his life even though he spent the majority of it in England. He both spoke and wrote the language of his birth fluently. His family was Welsh through and through who had farmed the land around Denbigh for as long as anyone could remember. Yet Isaac Roberts was destined not to be a farmer like his father and his father before him. Instead he was to become one of the greatest pioneers of Astrophotography, whose images of the heavens astounded the world - and which showed objects in a way no human eye had ever gazed upon before. Let us now tell the story of his life which began amid the sheep, choirs and sermons of the Vale of Clwyd, Northern Wales in the years just before Queen Victoria ascended the throne.
Liverpool
Isaac Roberts was born on the 27th January 1829 in the tiny village of Groes a few miles from the market town of Denbigh, Denbighshire, Wales, the son of a local farmer William Roberts and his wife Catherine (nee Williams). A few days later on the 30th January his christening took place at the Swan Lane Chapel, Chapel Street in Denbigh, where successive generations of the Roberts and Williams families’ children had gone before.
Groes, Denbighshire, Wales, Birthplace of Isaac Roberts
In the early decades of the 19th century many people in the villages surrounding Denbigh earned living from farming the sheep and cows which grazed in the luscious pastures of the Vale of Clwyd, made green by a never ending season of rain, followed by more rain. The sheer drudgery was only broken on Sundays when a trip to the local chapel was for many the highlight of their week – a chance to meet friends and family and to have chat. This never ending cycle of sheep and sermons took place week in week out and continued from one generation to the next.
Then rumours were heard of a better life ‘over the water’ in the burgeoning port of Liverpool; where employment was guaranteed and where people could perhaps make something of themselves and actually be somebody. For Isaac Roberts and his parents it was time to move on. Sometime around 1836 before Isaac Robert’s childhood had ended, the whole Roberts family moved to Liverpool. By the time of the 1841 Census they were to be found living in the Dock Area of Liverpool at a house in Collingwood Street – Isaac Roberts, his father and mother, his five sisters, his grandfather and his uncle.
Liverpool in the 1830s was undergoing unprecedented expansion. It had overtaken London as the main port for the import of cotton. During the period 1815 to 1835 eight new docks had been built to cope with increase in traffic. Its industries and the number of factories were growing at a rapid rate- marine engineering, food processing, clothing manufacture and many others - all symptomatic of the blossoming Industrial Revolution and a shift away by people from the land into the city.
This all came at a price. The greatly increased population who had come to the city from the rural areas in search of work needed housing. They found it in overcrowded cheaply constructed tenement buildings, devoid of any proper sanitation. It was not surprising that the Liverpool of the 1840s was one of the unhealthiest places in which to live.
Liverpool Docks, by Atkinson Grimshaw 1875
In 1842 Edwin Chadwick published a survey of the ‘Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population’. In it he reported that for Liverpool the average life expectancy of a Labourer was only 15, that of a Tradesman slightly more at 22; even a Gentleman could not expect to survive much beyond 35. Ironically in rural areas where the Roberts’s came from a farm labourer was found to live twice as long as his counterpart in the city! The Roberts family were not spared this salutary lesson in statistics, and by the time of the next Census in 1851 – Isaac’s mother and at least two of his sisters were dead.
However not all was bad. In 1851 William Roberts had changed his profession not surprisingly from Farmer to a new one as a Bookkeeper, whilst young Isaac had acquired a job as a Builder’s Clerk in the Civil Engineering Firm of John Johnson & Son. Isaac Roberts, his father and his younger brother William had also moved to a better area of Liverpool, Tarlton Street in the neighbouring district of Everton.
In the years that followed Isaac Robert’s career went from strength to strength. He had started a seven year long apprenticeship on the 12th November 1844 with the firm of John Johnson & Son, Builders and Lime Builders of Liverpool – a company of 60 years standing with a solid reputation for good quality work. By the time Isaac had completed his apprenticeship the firm had become Johnson & Robinson - Peter Robinson who had been with the company for over 30 years having being made a partner in 1847. It was Peter Robinson who took young Isaac under his wing and instilled in him all the virtues necessary to succeed.
Isaac Roberts proved to being a diligent and hardworking apprentice, preferring study to activities normally associated with young people. His evenings were spent at the Institute of Mechanics in Liverpool rather than out socializing in the many alcohol or other pleasure related establishments that were to be found in abundance in the city. In 1855 Isaac was made manager of the company when his master Peter Robinson died. A year later the other partner John Johnson died and Isaac Roberts was placed in control of winding up the company’s contracts and affairs.
In 1859 Isaac set business as small self employed Builder. By the time of the next Census in 1861, his father William Roberts had died and Isaac Roberts had moved to live with his widowed elder sister, Phoebe Owen in one of the newly constructed houses along Mersey Lane in a fashionable area of nearby Tranmere - which possessed exotic names such as ‘Sea View Villa’. In 1862 he was joined in the business by Peter Robinson’s son, J.J. Robinson and the firm became Roberts & Robinson Builders. The company’s first contract was to build the Birkenhead Waterworks on Flaybrick Hill, an area which at that time was one of great outstanding natural beauty. This was quickly followed by other lucrative contracts, e.g. it was the firm of Roberts & Robinson that was given the building contract for the construction of the new Lime Street Station Hotel for the London & North Western Railway Company. Within a few years Roberts & Robinson was one of the most respected construction firms in the region.
Rock Ferry
In 1871 we find Isaac Roberts still living with his widowed sister Phoebe Owens and her two daughters, Deborah and Ada, but now in an even more up market up residence –No. 26 Park Rock, Rock Ferry, Birkenhead. Rock Park provided comfortable homes for well-to-do merchants, ship owners and professional families, while the town of Rock Ferry itself provided homes and a living for small tradesmen, craftsmen and fishermen who served them.
Isaac was by now 42 years of age, a Master Builder, very well off indeed, unmarried and with as yet no obvious interest Astronomy or Photography whatsoever. However he was at that time known to be an avid amateur Geologist with a real passion for anything scientific or mechanical acquired during the many nights he spent at night school and his years in the building trade.
He published his first scientific paper on the unlikeliest of subjects for future pioneer of Astrophotography – “The Wells and Water of Liverpool”. It was in the field of Geology and not Astronomy that he first made his mark, and was in 1870 rewarded for his work when he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geological Society of London.
In 1875 Isaac Roberts finally married for the first time. His wife was Ellen Anne Cartmel the daughter of Anthony Cartmel a prosperous Shipwright in Liverpool. It was shortly after his marriage that his first interest in Astronomy is awakened. By 1878, Roberts had purchased his first telescope a Cooke 7-inch refractor which was erected in a revolving dome at his home in Rock Ferry, Birkenhead.
It should be remarked that Isaac Robert’s ‘first’ telescope was an extremely expensive instrument, made by T. Cooke & Sons of York who were at the time one of the finest makers of scientific instruments in the world. Such a telescope would have cost Isaac Roberts more than a lifetime of wages for the average Liverpool worker in the 1870s.
At first Isaac used his splendid instrument for visual observation from what was then a dark site location, relatively free of the light pollution that plagues the area now. He was now sufficiently well off to begin considering what was really important to him and in Astronomy he had found it. His building firm had made him financially secure and was he therefore fortunate in being able to do what he wanted and when he wanted.
In the 1870s, Liverpool and its surrounding environs were becoming ever more built up and were even beginning to encroach on the affluent area of Rock Ferry. Nothing is worse for any astronomer than the thought of the loss of an uninterrupted skyline and the prospect of city lights! So it was for Isaac Roberts. He had to move.
Maghull
In about 1881 Isaac Roberts moved yet again, this time to the tiny hamlet of Kennessee Green near to then small village of Maghull. The choice of location chosen by Isaac Roberts was no accident but the result of careful thought and consideration. It was quiet, small and at the time well away from threat of any urban sprawl and dark!
The Census for the year 1881 records that Isaac Roberts lived at his new home with his wife Ellen Anne, his niece Ada Jane Owen (daughter of his sister Phoebe), a Cook and a Domestic Servant - and his telescope of course.
In 1883, Roberts began experimenting with stellar photography for the first time. He first used a simple camera assembly comprising of an boxed enclosure containing a photographic plate and a portrait lens. This he attached to the declination axis of his 7” Cooke Refractor. A variety of portrait lenses with apertures varying from 3/8” to 5 were used during the course of his experiments. The lens which gave the best results was a 2” objective made by Lerebours & Secretan, which Roberts used as a benchmark configuration for his photographic tests of well known groups of stars.
So at the age of 54, Isaac Roberts began his passion for Astrophotography which lasted until the very day he died. As with anything new, he was sensible and did what even those beginning in Astrophography even today should do – take an image of star field and get it properly focused. This is exactly what Isaac Roberts did, but it should be said that he did it when very few other people in the world had taken a photograph of anything let alone a star.
Lerebours & Secretan Portrait Lens, c1855 5” (13cm) Aperture
Roberts was so pleased with the results that he did what every amateur astronomer does who his hooked – upgrade his equipment. However he did not upgrade as one might expect to a telescope with larger objective lens and a camera assembly attached at its focus, but instead he ordered a Reflecting Telescope with an 18” diameter mirror. Why?
Firstly, his experiments with portrait lenses had shown him that the best results were not necessarily achieved with a larger lens. Secondly he did what any sensible astronomer of today – look at the type of equipment others have and the quality of the results they achieved. In 1883 Andrew Ainslie Common, an amateur from Ealing, London had taken a magnificent photograph of the ‘Great Orion Nebula’ (M42) with a 37 minute exposure using his 36” Reflecting Telescope. It was this photograph and his experiences with lenses which made up Robert’s mind to buy a Reflector. He confirmed as much when in 1886 he wrote:
“The results of these experiments, and comparison with Mr. Common’s great photograph of the Nebula in Orion, that I gave Sir Howard Grubb an order to make me a 20-inch silver on glass reflector, with 100 inch focal length, the photographs to be taken directly in the focus of the mirror, to obviate any loss of light by a second reflexion, the photographic telescope to be mounted on the same declination axis as the 7-inch refractor, one being the counterpoise to the other”.
The 18” Reflector was ordered from the famous telescope maker Grubbs of Dublin and the results obtained with were so encouraging that Roberts ordered an even larger one now with a 20” diameter mirror. It was with this telescope that Isaac Roberts learned his trade as an Astrophotographer and subsequently took the images for which he rightly became famous.
Isaac Roberts’s new career as an astronomer began to flourish, by the end of 1886, Roberts had become president of his local astronomical at Liverpool, and had taken 200 pictures of the stars, in addition to pictures of the Orion nebula (M42), the Andromeda nebula (M31) and the Pleiades (M45). I say career and not hobby or vocation, because that is exactly what it was. His building business had made him financially independent and he no longer needed it to earn a living, and his astronomical interests were beginning to take up more and more of his time.
In 1888 he wound up his interests in his building contracting company to devote all his time and energies to Astrophotography. He completed the construction of an Observatory in his house at Maghull and began taking photographs of well known star clusters, nebulae and galaxies – whose structure and composition were only just beginning to be understood through photographic and spectroscopic studies.
Unfortunately it had become clear to Isaac Roberts that his present observing site did not have as many clear nights as he would have liked (he should live there now!). This was becoming ever more frustrating, so much so that Roberts decided to move his new Observatory to a more favourable location.
In his customary fashion the search for a new observing site was conducted with the utmost care and attention to detail. Roberts even went to the trouble of travelling to the West Indies in an attempt to find his ideal ‘dark site’. He finally decided after much deliberation, to establish his Observatory at Crowborough Hill in Sussex.
Crowborough as a suitable observing site was probably brought to Robert’s attention by Charles Leeson Prince FRAS, FR Met. Soc. In 1885, Prince a retired physician and now amateur astronomer, had written a book entitled “Observations upon the Topography and Climate of Crowborough Hill, Sussex”, which described in great detail the benefits of the area as a ‘health resort, with a bracing climate and recuperative properties of the air’.
It is not known whether Roberts knew Prince directly or through a mutual friend or whether he stumbled on the book by accident or had it recommended to him. Whatever the truth was Charles Leeson Prince sold part of the plot on which his own house known as ‘The Observatory’ was situated, in fact about four acres, to Roberts. So in 1890, Isaac Roberts moved yet again to his new home which he named ‘Starfield’.
'Starfield'
By the time of the 1891 Census, we find Robert’s and his wife fully established at ‘Starfield’, with Charles Leeson Prince as his neighbour’. ‘Starfield’ was the only one of Robert’s homes which he had personally created from the very outset - from the choice of location, to architectural design, through construction, interior furnishings and the layout of the grounds.
Any Estate Agent will tell you that the three most important points when buying a house are – Location, Location and Location. The location of ‘Starfield’ was ideal - almost on the summit of Crowborough Beacon at a height of about 800 feet above sea level commanding magnificent views. It was an ideal situation for an observatory.
Roberts supervised the building of both the observatory and the bungalow by local workers, thus ensuring the work was up to his exacting standards. Not only was the observatory well appointed, but so was the house. The grounds included a tennis lawn, a productive kitchen garden and fruit plantation. There was also a meteorological station. The visitor to ‘Starfield’ could not fail to be impressed by the wonderful astronomical photographs that were displayed on the walls of the house. The plates of comets, star clusters, and nebula, carefully selected from the thousands available formed a magnificent art exhibition.
‘Starfield’ Isaac Robert’s Home at Crowborough, Sussex
It was at ‘Starfield’ that Isaac Roberts left his true legacy to Astrophotography. Although he had accomplished much whilst at Maghull, the work for which he is justly famous was done at ‘Starfield’. However, things could have been very different, so much so that the name of Isaac Roberts could have been forgotten and lost to the pages of history. It had been Robert’s intention to produce a photographic map of the stars using his 20” Reflector starting at the North Pole. An exposure of 15 minutes was chosen for each plate.
He even went so far as to send several of the plates to the Royal Astronomical Society for comment and to develop a means of preserving the plates themselves. In partnership with Adam Hilger (1839 1897), the Bristol optician and instrument maker famous for his spectroscopes, they produced what became known as the ‘Stellar Pantograver' - an instrument for engraving directly onto copper the stars shown on the glass plates.
Isaac Robert’s 20” Reflecting Telescope
Fortunately for Roberts an International convention was held in Paris to discuss the production of a photographic sky survey of the both hemispheres. This resulted in the setting up of the ‘Carte du Ciel’ – a project setup to coordinate the results from eighteen professional observatories worldwide. The project in hindsight was doomed to failure from the outset, being overly ambitious and more importantly lacked the necessary technology to succeed – technology which would not become available until a hundred years later with the advent of CCD chips and Earth orbiting satellites.
It became obvious to Isaac Roberts that the project should be 'professionally' run so he relinquished his share and turned his attention to the photography of clusters and nebulae - a decision which proved to be the correct one for both himself and for the future development of Astrophotography in general.
The ‘right path’ for Roberts had been demonstrated at a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society held in the January of 1886 when he presented a photograph of the open cluster known as the ‘Seven Sisters’ or Pleiades (M45)which showed for the first time nebulosity surrounding the stars Alcyone, Maia, Merope and Electra. It was this that was to become Robert’s legacy – obtaining photographic images of nebulae and clusters which showed not only their magnificence, but more importantly to Science their structure. It was then up to the new science of Astrophysics and in particular astronomical spectroscopy to explain what these images showed in terms of physical processes and chemical composition.
This was the background to the work which Isaac Roberts was to conduct at Crowborough. The work was carried out with the usual systematic thoroughness for which he was well known. A timetable was drawn up detailing how each day was to be spent, broken down into individual tasks set against the hours in the day that they were to be done. Some hours of the morning and some of the afternoon were always set apart for astronomical work and the evenings and nights were almost exclusively, weather permitting, reserved for Astrophotography.
Although Roberts was capable photographer, acquired during his years at Maghull he secured the services of William Franks as his practical photographer and assistant. It was with the diligence of Franks, under the supervision and guidance of Roberts, that a wonderful collection of astronomical photographs was obtained, whose number and quality far exceeded any taken previously.
By 1893 Roberts had amassed sufficient numbers of photographs to publish the first volume of a two volume set entitled ‘A Selection of Photographs of Stars, Star-clusters and Nebulae’ and in the same year the University of Dublin conferred upon him the degree of DSc on the occasion of its centenary. The second volume of his photographs was published six years later in 1899. As was his custom, Isaac generously distributed copies to many observatories and libraries.
Isaac Robert’s 1887 Photograph of the ‘Great Andromeda Spiral’ (M31)
By way of recognition of his magnificent photographs of star clusters and nebulae, the Royal Astronomical Society awarded its Gold Medal in 1895 to Isaac Roberts.
Not every day was devoted to Astrophotography. Isaac Roberts even had time to remarry. His first wife Ellen Anne Cartmel had died in 1901 [23], but Isaac Roberts was to meet his second wife some years before. In 1896, Isaac Roberts was a member of the party onboard the Norwegian vessel, Norse King [24] who went to Vadso in Norway to observe the total solar eclipse which took place on the 9th of August of that year. While the eclipse itself was clouded out, Isaac met a woman some thirty years his junior, to match his interest and skill in astronomy.
Dorothea Klumpke was a female astronomer – a rare breed at that time. Despite being a woman, and in the face of fierce competition from 50 men, she had secured the post of ‘Director of the Bureau of Measurements’ at the Paris Observatory. Five years after meeting, Dorothea and Isaac were married in 1901 and went live with him at ‘Starfield’. Dorothea left her job at the Paris Observatory in order to be with Isaac, whom she assisted in a project to photograph all 52 of the Herschel "areas of nebulosity."
Dorothea Klumpke Roberts (1861 – 1942)
His death on the 17th July 1904 was sudden and unexpected. On the very day of his death he was to be found working on his treasured negatives. After taking a walk in his garden, he went indoors to rest, complaining of pains in his chest. He died an hour later.
The Kent and Sussex Courier of 1904 July 22nd reported his death and tells us that:
'All last winter he (Isaac Roberts) was abroad on account of the bronchial catarrh from which he suffered. On Sunday after breakfast he strolled in the garden with Mrs Roberts, but afterwards, feeling unwell, he went indoors. Mrs Roberts applied remedies and sent for medical help, but before the arrival of Dr Basden and Dr Griffiths, death had taken place. At the inquest on Tuesday it was stated, 'Death was due to failure of the heart's action accelerated by the heat'
Isaac Roberts left no children by either of his two marriages, so Dorothea inherited all his astronomical effects and a considerable fortune. The capital of his estate would ultimately go to the Universities of Liverpool and Wales (at Bangor and Cardiff) for the provision of student scholarships.
Dorothea remained at their Crowborough home and completed the photography of the 52 areas, after which she went to stay with her mother and sister, Anna, at Chateau Rosa Bonheur, taking along the entire set of photographic plates. She returned to Paris Observatory and spent 25 years processing the plates and Isaac's notes, periodically publishing papers on the results.
In 1929 she published a comprehensive catalogue of the survey "The Isaac Roberts Atlas of 52 Regions, a Guide to William Herschel's Fields of Nebulosity" [25]. She was awarded the Hèléne-Paul Helbronner prize in 1932 from the French Academy of Sciences for this publication.
Dorothea Klumpke died on 5 October 1942 in San Francisco, having been in poor health for a number of years.
Isaac Roberts was cremated a few days after his death, but his ashes were later interred at Flaybrick Hill Cemetery, Birkenhead near to the site of his first major building contract, in a special ceremony held on the 21st July 1908, attended by his widow Dorothea, the Mayor of Liverpool and other notable dignitaries.
The memorial headstone erected by Dorothea Klumpke Roberts is one of great beauty and significance, and is a fitting tribute from a devoted wife and a fellow astronomer. The epitaph reads:
"In memory of Isaac Roberts, Fellow of the Royal Society, one of England's pioneers in the domain of Celestial Photography. Born at Groes, near Denbigh, 27 January, 1829, died at Starfield, Crowboro, Sussex, 17 July, 1904, who spent his whole life in the search after Truth, and the endeavour to aid the happiness of others. Heaven is within us. This stone is erected in loving devotion by his widow Dorethea Roberts née Klumpke."
A transcription of the epitaph is written in Welsh on the rear of the memorial, to remind us of all of the land where he was born and which he never forgot. At the base of the Stele is to be found carved representations of two of his photographs. The objects depicted were chosen very carefully by Dorothea for their personal and scientific significance.
The one of the left represents the ‘Great Andromeda Nebula’ (M31) and the one of the right the California Nebula (NGC 1499). Both of these objects were among Isaac Robert’s favourites, but more importantly they represented examples of the two types of Nebula that Robert’s photographs had shown to exist, although their true nature was at the time of his death not truly understood. Nebulae like M31 were known from the work of William Huggins and Joseph Steiner to be made up of an almost incalculable number of stars, whilst objects like NGC 1499 were composed of Gas (principally Hydrogen and Oxygen).
An empty recess in the memorial was intended to contain the ashes of Dorothea Klumpke Roberts, but for some unknown reason it was never used.
The saddest part of Isaac Robert’s life happened ironically after his death, which I hope he never learns of wherever he might now be. It concerns the fate of his beloved ‘Starfield’ and the Observatory in which he spent many happy years.
His instruments were auctioned off by Langridge and Freeman of London. The telescope and mount were purchased by the Royal Greenwich Observatory, where they remained for some years. Ultimately they passed to the Science Museum, South Kensington, where they are to this day, still on the original mount in a dome on the museum roof. Unfortunately public access to it is not permitted.
Although the telescopes had been sold, the dome in which they were housed remained at ‘Starfield’ when it was purchased by a Mr Mackinnon Wood. The house was again on the market in 1928 following Mr Mackinnon Wood's death. It was sold in 1929 before auction to Uckfield Rural District Council for £3,500.
By 1934 the ever present ‘creeping paralysis’ of Local Government began to appear. The Council's staff had expanded from 17 to 29 and it was agreed to alter and extend the building. Unfortunately, it was decided that the dome did not fit into the new scheme and was removed. The work was completed in 1935 and what a surprise - it included a new Council Chamber!
During the early 1980s ‘Starfield’ became too small for the then Wealdon District Council and a new (and obviously even larger) complex was built about half a mile away. It will come as no surprise to you that ‘Starfield’ was surplus to requirements and was sold to make way for a modern housing development. Despite much campaigning, local historians were unable to get the Department of the Environment to list the building, so it was demolished, to make way for the 14 houses which comprise the ‘Starfield’ Estate.
Legacy
What was it about Isaac Roberts and his photographs that have earned him the right to be called one of the truly great Pioneers of Astrophotography? The first point was admirably made by Sir William de Wiveleslie Abney in the address he made as President of the RAS on the award of its Gold Medal to Roberts, in which he said:
"The photographs by Common (Andrew Ainslie Common) of the great nebula in Orion were epoch making in astronomical photography and worthily was the medal bestowed on him for his classic work, and it is no disparagement of the labours of the present recipient (Roberts) if one traces in them the mark of what Common had shown to be possibilities."
Andrew Ainslie Common had shown what was possible in Astrophotography, but Isaac Roberts had made it a reality, with the quality, quantity and variety of his images.
Secondly, the previous images of Deep Sky Objects (DSOs) obtained by the likes Henry Draper and Andrew Ainslie Common were what I call ‘test’ images and were mainly of the ‘Great Orion Nebula’ (M42) – the most obvious target of all; and the favourite of any modern day ‘newbie’ Astrophotographer because of its size and brightness.
What Roberts did was to expand the choice of target to include all the well known DSOs that the modern imager would choose as the next step in his ‘learning curve’ – open clusters, globular clusters, gaseous, nebulae and galaxies. Such targets were not only of different object types, but were a combination of both bright and faint objects and included a variety of angular sizes ranging from a few arc minutes up to several degrees.
To give you some idea of the sheer volume of his photographic output; his widow Dorothea compiled in 1907 a preliminary catalogue of his photographic collection [27]. In it she listed 2485 negatives of stars, star clusters, nebulae and other celestial objects; of which the majority (1412) were taken with his 20” Reflector.
Lastly, and most important of all, Isaac Roberts for the very first time showed the detailed structure of the objects he photographed in a medium which was accurate and permanent. Prior to then, these objects had been only seen through the eyepiece of a telescope and appeared in the main as faint ‘blobs’, except through the largest of instruments. This allowed astronomers to begin to accurately classify the objects and through the new science of Astrophysics to start the long process of understanding what they really were.
Of all the photographs that Roberts took his most famous and certainly his own personal favourite was that of the great nebula in Andromeda (M31) taken in 1887, and to quote Sir William Abney in his RAS address of 1895:
“... A little afterwards he produced his recently published photograph of the great nebula in Andromeda, giving an exposure of 4 hours to the plate. In this prolonged exposure we have an example of a triumph of patience and instrumental perfection, though these qualities are exhibited in other instances as well. This beautiful object is depicted with its rings of nebulosity in great perfection, and we can correct the eye observations which had been previously made upon it. The stars in the field are beautifully sharp and round, showing that the eye as well as the instrument had to be employed throughout the long exposure to correct changes in the position of the star due to atmospheric refraction and the variation in the rate of clock driving.”
Shortly before his death Isaac Roberts had a portrait of himself painted by his wife’s sister, the artist Anna Klumpke, in which he is shown resting in an armchair, holding in his hand one of his memorable photographs. The image he chose was that of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) not his most recent photograph of it, but the one had taken in 1887.
The legacy of Isaac Roberts can be summed up in his preface to the first volume of his ‘A Selection of Photographs of Stars, Star-clusters and Nebulae’, in which he says:
“It has been my aim, in publishing the photographs and descriptive matter contained in the following pages, to place data in the hands of astronomers for the study of astronomical phenomena, which have been obtained by the aid of mechanical, manipulative, and chemical processes of the highest order at present attainable, and that such data should be, as regards the photographs, free from all personal errors.
The photographs portray portions of the starry heavens in a form at all times available for study, and identically as they appear to an observer aided by a powerful telescope and dear sky for observing.
Absent are the atmospheric tremors, the cold observatory, the interrupting clouds, the straining of the eyes, the numbing of the limbs, the errors in recording observations, and the many hardships incurred by our predecessors of glorious memory in their attempts to see and fathom the illimitable beyond.
I commend the observations and the photographs herein to astronomers and students of the new astronomy."
Isaac Roberts, 1893
His photographs have been left to us as his final legacy. Nobody not even Wealdon District Council can take those away from us now.
M31 - the 'Great Andomeda Spiral' Galaxy
M42 - the 'Great Orion Nebula'
M11 - 'Wild Duck' Cluster in Scutum
NGC6992 - Veil (Eastern Part) Nebula in Cygnus
M57 - 'Ring Nebula' in Lyra
Isaac Roberts Headstone at Flaybrick Cemetery, Birkenhead
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