History of Astrophotography

The first known successful image of an astronomical object was of the Moon taken in 1840 by John William Draper, although Louis Daguerre had obtained a blurred image of the Moon a year earlier.

In the years that followed images of other astronomical objects were taken, notably:

1850, John Whipple and William Bond, the first photograph of a Star – Vega (Alpha Lyrae); 

1851 M. Berkowski , the first photograph of a Total Eclipse of the Sun; 

1854, Joseph Bancroft Reade images the Sun’s Photosphere for the first time in detail; 

1880, Henry Draper, images a Deep Sky Object for the first time, the Orion Nebula (M42);

1885, Brothers Paul and Prosper Henry took the first successful images a Planet (Jupiter and Saturn).

ArtdeCiel provides an online database of Early Astronomical Photographs, which is fully searchable for Object Type (e.g. Galaxy, Nebula etc), Object Name, Imager and Nationality of Imager.

For each image the name of the object, the type of object, the constellation in which it is found (if applicable), the name of the imager and the date of the image, as well as a thumbnail of the object is provided.

An image gallery of all the early photographs can be accessed by clicking the indicated link.

M51 George Ritchey, 1910

M42, Isaac Roberts, 1896

Saturn, Henry Brothers, 1885

Click Here For Gallery

Image Object Object Type Constellation Imager Date Detail
Moon Full. Moon Zodiacal John William Draper 1840 More...
Sun. Sun Zodiacal Jean Bernhard Foucault 1845 More...
Sun. Sun Zodiacal M. Berkowski 1851 More...
First Quarter. Moon Zodiacal John Adams Whipple 1852 More...
ZetUMa. Star. Ursa Major George Phillips Bond 1857 More...
First Quarter. Moon Zodiacal Lewis Morris Rutherfurd 1865 More...

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