IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB001024142

The “Landmark” and “Groundwork” of Stars: John Herschel, Photography and the Drawing of Nebulae (2011)

Nasim, Omar W. (Author)

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
Volume: 42
Pages: 67-84

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Astronomy Visual representation; visual communication Stars; stellar astronomy Photography Galaxies; nebulae Illustrations Drawing; designing Scientific illustration 19th century Herschel, John Frederick William

This paper argues for continuity in purpose and specific results between some hand drawn nebulae, especially those `descriptive maps' by John F. W. Herschel and E. P. Mason in the late 1830s, and the first photographs made of the nebulae in the 1880s. Using H. H. Turners' explication in 1904 of the three great advantages of astrophotography, the paper concludes that to some extent Herschel's and Mason's hand-drawings of the nebulae were meant to achieve the same kinds of results. This is surprising not only because such drawings were conceived and achieved over forty-years earlier, but also because the procedures used in the production of these pictorially and metrically rich images were those directly inspired by cartography, geodesy, and land-surveying. Such drawings provided the standard for what was depicted, expected and aimed at by way of successful representations of the nebulae; standards that seemed to have been used to judge the success of nebular photographs. Being conditions of expectation and possibility for later photography, these drawings were themselves made possible by such techniques of representation and measurement as isolines and triangulation, so fundamental to Imperial and `Humboltian science.'

...More

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001024142/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Book Nasim, Omar W.; (2013)
Observing by Hand: Sketching the Nebulae in the Nineteenth Century (/isis/citation/CBB001213160/)

Article Brauckmann, Sabine; (2011)
Axes, Planes and Tubes, or the Geometry of Embryogenesis (/isis/citation/CBB001221526/)

Article Schulze, Elke; (2005)
Zeichnung und Fotografie - Statusfragen: Universitäres Zeichnen und naturwissenschaftliche Bildfindung (/isis/citation/CBB000670816/)

Article Nasim, Omar W.; (2009)
On Seeing an Image of a Spiral Nebula from Whewell to Flammarion (/isis/citation/CBB000933738/)

Article Tobin, Willian; Holberg, J. B.; (2008)
A Newly-Discovered Accurate Early Drawing of M51, the Whirlpool Nebula (/isis/citation/CBB001034771/)

Article Cooperstein, Shana; (2014)
Imagery and Astronomy: Visual Antecedents Informing Non-Reproductive Depictions of the Orion Nebula (/isis/citation/CBB001201298/)

Book Don S. Lemons; (2018)
Drawing Physics: 2,600 Years of Discovery From Thales to Higgs (/isis/citation/CBB338204173/)

Book Voss, Julia; (2010)
Darwin's Pictures: Views of Evolutionary Theory, 1837--1874 (/isis/citation/CBB001033452/)

Article Kólbl-Ebert, Martina; (2012)
Sketching Rocks and Landscape: Drawing as a Female Accomplishment in the Service of Geology (/isis/citation/CBB001251742/)

Article Anderson, Gemma; (2014)
Endangered: A Study of Morphological Drawing in Zoological Taxonomy (/isis/citation/CBB001201296/)

Article Case, Stephen; (2014)
How Bright Planets Became Dim Stars: Planetary Speculations in John Herschel's Double Star Astronomy (/isis/citation/CBB001214331/)

Thesis Case, Stephen R.; (2014)
Making Stars Physical: John Herschel's Stellar Astronomy, 1816--71 (/isis/citation/CBB001567574/)

Article Crowther, Kathleen M.; Barker, Peter; (2013)
Training the Intelligent Eye: Understanding Illustrations in Early Modern Astronomy Texts (/isis/citation/CBB001321211/)

Book Bratton, Mark; (2011)
The Complete Guide to the Herschel Objects: Sir William Herschel's Star Clusters, Nebulae, and Galaxies (/isis/citation/CBB001252581/)

Book Elkins, James; (2008)
Six Stories from the End of Representation: Images in Painting, Photography, Astronomy, Microscopy, Particle Physics, and Quantum Mechanics, 1980--2000 (/isis/citation/CBB000774367/)

Chapter Pantin, Isabelle; (2013)
Analogy and Difference: A Comparative Study of Medical and Astronomical Images in Books, 1470--1550 (/isis/citation/CBB001213967/)

Chapter Veronique Deblon; (2017)
Imitating Anatomy: Recycling Anatomical Illustrations in Nineteenth-Century Atlases (/isis/citation/CBB653374355/)

Book Hans Walter Lack; (2015)
The Bauers: Joseph, Franz & Ferdinand : Masters of Botanical Illustration : an Illustrated Biography (/isis/citation/CBB700600188/)

Book Paul Henderson; (2015)
James Sowerby: The Enlightenment's Natural Historian (/isis/citation/CBB129548231/)

Article Jane Coutts; (2016)
Illustrating Microorganisms: Sir William Watson Cheyne (1852–1932) and Bacteriology (/isis/citation/CBB669981589/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}