The Earliest Comet Photographs: Usherwood,Bond,and Donati 1858

Arago F. , “Le Daguerréotype”, Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Sciences , ix (1839), 250–67, pp. 262–3, writes: “La preparation sur laquelle M. Daguerre opère, est un réactif beaucoup plus sensible à l'action de la lumière que tous ceux dont on s'était servi jusqu'ici. Jamais les rayons de la lune, nous ne disons pas à l'état naturel, mais condenses au foyer de la plus grande lentille, au foyer du plus large miroir réfléchissant, n'avaient produit d'effet physique perceptible. Les lames de plaqué préparés par M. Daguerre, blanchissent au contraire tel point sous Taction de ces mêmes rayons et des operations qui lui succèdent, qu'il est permis d'espérer qu'on pourra faire des cartes photographiques de notre satellite.” Translated, it reads: “Never had the rays of the Moon, not necessarily in its natural state but condensed in the mechanism of a great lens or a large reflecting mirror, produced any physical or perceptible effect. The plate prepared by M. Daguerre whitens on the contrary to such a point under the action of these very rays and the operations that follow so that we can hope that we will be able to make photographic maps of our satellite.” So apparently the disk of the Moon appeared but without features.

Hoffleit D. , Some firsts in astronomical photography (Cambridge, Mass., 1950), 10. Hoffleit Dr writes (21 January 1996) that her booklet accompanied an exhibition at the Fogg Museum of Harvard University to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the first stellar photograph. No comet photograph was in the exhibition.

Barger M. S. , “The Moon, 6 August 1851”, in 1989 annual report, The Christian A. Johnson Memorial Gallery, Middlebury College (Middlebury, Vermont, 1990), 9. See also Jones B. Z. Boyd L. G. , The Harvard College Observatory: The first four directorships, 1839–1919 (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), 71–87. Donald Trombino John Pazmino inform us (1996) that the daguerreotype of the Moon referred to in Barger's footnote 5 and described in Trombino D. F. , “Dr. John William Draper”, Journal of the British Astronomical Association , xc (1980), 565–71, matches in detailed markings on the metal plates a set of faded daguerreotypes filed at the New York University Archives and clearly labelled that they were taken by Draper W. C. . The circumstance leaves them no doubt that the daguerreotype Pazmino purchased in a Greenwich Village bookstore in the 1970s is the lost one, the best of Draper's lunar daguerreotypes from 1840 (since the ones at New York University have all faded and show no lunar detail); they conclude that it is the one exhibited at the New York Lyceum and long thought to have been destroyed. Dennis di Cicco (private communication, 1996) holds that the matter is still in doubt because the image shows more features on the Moon than implied by Draper's comments about his daguerreotype.

Hoffleit , op. cit. (ref. 2), 27–28.

Norman D. , “The development of astronomical photography”, Osiris , v (1938), 560–94, pp. 569–70. Hoffleit Dr writes (21 January 1996) that she discovered this article only when her own pamphlet was in press, and reports “Now, at any rate, it must be said that the two papers were entirely independently researched”. Some of the material appears as Hoffleit D. , “The first star photograph”, Sky & telescope , ix, issue of July 1950, cover and 207–10. She concludes, “But, although the collodion process had proved its superiority, it, too, was apparently abandoned (at least at the 15-inch) after the summer of 1860. Not until dry plates came into use was celestial photography actively resumed at Harvard, when in the 1880's W. H. Pickering's inspiration and E. C. Pickering's foresight and administration started the world's largest library of celestial photographs”.

The record book for the 15-inch telescope that recorded the photography of Donati's Comet is stored in the Harvard Deposit Library in box no. C0004. (This numbering scheme, in the Harvard Deposit Library, supersedes the older KG 11365.167 call number from the Archives.) The book is numbered H.28 and is entitled “Equatorial Book VII, 1858, Sept. 25 to Nov. 11th”. Comments added later were written in ink, but in general the notes are in graphite. At the focus of the 15-inch refractor, 15” corresponds to 0.5 mm. The page is headed by the following inscription: “1858. Sept 28. Donati's Comet. Photography.” It seems from Bond's notes that he was working on regulating the rate at which the telescope was driving, to keep up with the comet's motion, which is different from the rate at which the stars move. Later in this passage, Bond added (in ink): “On Examination with Microscope this plate exhibits an undoubted image of 15” diameter — oval.” Further down the page, he noted (in pencil), “Looked by glimpses at Comet. It increases very rapidly. Extremity of tail now reaches 2/3 from nucleus to * K of 27th”. Below the sketch he added, “I have always seen this dark axis in the Comet seeker nearest to the faint concave side of tail”. Bond has also indicated it in the sketch.

Bond G. P. , An account of Donati's Comet of 1858 (Cambridge, Mass., 1858), 16. (Reprinted from “An account of the comet of Donati. 1858”, Mathematical monthly , i (1858), 61–67 and 88–116, p. 96).

Bond G. P. , “Account of the Great Comet of 1858”, Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College , iii (1862), 210.

Plates I and III are in the Harvard College Observatory plate collection; Plate II is missing. We could see an image only on Plate III, matching Bond's comment. The plates and miscellaneous daguerreotypes are in a “Treasure Cabinet” kept in the plate collection. Hoffleit Dorrit (21 January 1996) recalls: “All the antique treasure plates at Harvard used to be kept in Dr. Shapley's office in a special locked Treasure Cabinet. I remember well the pleasure I had going through everything in that sanctified cabinet.”.

Curiously, Bond's 1859 Director's Report of the Harvard College Observatory states, “In addition there have been published:—Notice of a photograph of the Comet of Donati, 1858”. This notice does not exist in the Harvard University Archives, nor do the Director's Reports from previous years. No other mention of Donati's Comet appears in this 1859 Director's Report. ( Bond G. P. , included in the Report of the Committee of the Overseers of Harvard College appointed to visit the Observatory in the year 1859 (Boston, 1860), 21; Harvard University Archives HUF 165.59.75. Norman, op. cit. (ref. 5), p. 575, refers, incorrectly by one year, to “page 21 of the Report of the Director of the Harvard Observatory for the year 1858”).

Barnard E. E. , “The development of photography in astronomy”, Popular astronomy , vi (1898), 425–55, p. 438.

Yeomans D. K. , Comets: A chronological history of observation, science, myth, and folklore (New York, 1991), 205, describes Usherwood's and Bond's work and Bond's letter to Carrington thanking him for sending Usherwood's photograph.

De Vaucouleurs G. , in Astronomical photography: From the Daguerreotype to the electron camera , transl. by Wright R. (London, 1961), 41, writes: “Donati's great comet of 1858 was the first any one tried to photograph; but only the photographer, Usherwood, using a short-focus portrait lens, succeeded in obtaining a small overall view with a 7-second exposure; W. de la Rue could not get an image of it with his 13-inch telescope, whose f/9 focal ratio was too slow for this type of observation, nor did he manage to record the comet of 1861.”.

Grove-Hills E. H. , “The decade 1850–1860”, in Dreyer J.L. E. Turner H. H. (eds). History of the Royal Astronomical Society 1820–1920 (London, 1923; reprinted Oxford, 1987), 110–28, p. 113.

Anonymous, “Report of the Council”, Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society , xix (1859), 138–9; quoted in Norman, op. cit. (ref. 5), 575–6.

Usherwood does not appear in the International guide to nineteenth century photographers (Boston, 1988), or Nineteenth century photography: An annotated bibliography, 1839–1879 (Boston, 1990). We thank Pamela Roberts for trying to find any reference to Usherwood at the Royal Photographic Society, Bath, and the National Museum of Film, Photography, and Television, Bradford; and Peter Hingley for checking that Usherwood had not been a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Notification of our search was widely disseminated in Pasachoff J. M. , “Not so common”, New scientist , no. 1993 (2 September 1995), 51. We thank especially Jeffrey Hill of Reigate, who provided the conclusive links to Usherwood himself, for finding the photograph of Usherwood's photographic establishment in Janaway's J. book, Surrey — A photographic record (Newbury, Berks, 1984), and for photographic prints of these images. In addition, we thank Ted Swystun and Diane Walker, who also made the identifications of name and location, as well as Roger Griffin Don Simpson Elliot Aylwin Mike Rees John Goodier , who all identified the location of Usherwood's observing site. The photographs are in the Surrey Archaeological Society in The Lyne scrapbook for Dorking. We also thank Duncan Mirylees of the Surrey Local Studies Library.

We are grateful to Brian Overell of the Dorking & District Museum for the information on Usherwood's directory listings, for providing us with Usherwood's obituary and retirement photograph and with information on how to obtain the photographs of Usherwood's shop, and for information from Jackson Alan A. (ed.), Around Dorking in old photographs (Far Thrupp, Stroud, Gloucestershire, 1989). We thank Alan Sutton, the publisher, for his correspondence.

Available in a scrapbook in the Dorking & District Museum; no additional information appears, other than the month and year. The photograph of Usherwood used in the obituary was cropped from a photograph of Usherwood and his wife published on the occasion of their 70th wedding anniversary in The Dorking and Leatherhead advertiser, 25 October 1913. It was taken by Moorhouse J. W. , the successor in his photographic business. The accompanying article states that “Mr. Usherwood was undoubtedly a master of his craft. He had the honour of painting portraits of Queen Victoria and Princess Alice for the Duchess of Gloucester”.

Bond mss., Harvard University Archives, UAV 630.6, Carrington folder. Carrington's folder contains many documents, none dated between this letter and Bond's reply.

Bond mss., Harvard University Archives, UAV 630.6, Carrington folder.

An abridged version appears in Holden E. S. , Memorials of William Cranch Bond and of his son George Phillips Bond (San Francisco and New York, 1897), 167.

Bond mss., Harvard University Archives, UAV 630.6, Carrington folder, 1. Norman , op. cit. (ref. 5), 576, who quotes this section of the letter, adds: “But with a focal ratio off/15 compared to Usherwood's f/2.4.” His values for these parameters are based on Bond's letter to Usherwood, which assumed a “12-inch focus and 5-inch aperture”, stating in a footnote: “Since Bond had accurate measures of the extent of the comet's tail, he could undoubtedly obtain the focal length of the camera from the photograph, but there is no indication of the data that led him to assume a 5-inch aperture.” The advantages of Usherwood's collodion plate over Bond's and the speed of his camera are discussed by Norman R. K. M. [ Roy K. Marshall ], “Astronomical anecdotes: More photographic ‘firsts’; sky surveys”, The sky , v, issue of September 1941, 16.

Bond mss., Harvard University Archives, UAV 630.6, Carrington folder, 2–3.

Ibid. , 4. Holden, op. cit. (ref. 22) does not include the final page with its direct reference to Usherwood. This omission misled Norman, op. cit. (ref. 5), who wrote (p. 576), “The only other relevant document [to the Monthly notices report] is a letter of Bond's which can refer only to this photograph, although Usherwood's name is nowhere mentioned”. The handwritten copies of Bond's letters to Carrington and Usherwood, and Usherwood's original reply, are in the Harvard University Archives, Harvard College Observatory papers, Records of the Director, Bond G. P. , 11 June 1859, UAV 630.6. We thank Virginia Smyers of the Harvard University Archives for her assistance. She informs us that the Usherwood letter, although undated, is filed with Bond's letters to Carrington and from him, and that it is not obvious from how the letters are filed in the Archives what the second letter mentioned by Bond in his letter to Carrington might be. Referring to Bond's letter, Holden writes in a footnote (p. 168), “Until this letter became known, the historians of astronomical photography supposed the first comet photographs to be those of 1881”.

Bond mss., Harvard University Archives, UAV 630.6, Usherwood folder. The folder contains only Bond's letter to Usherwood and the reply.

Ibid. .

Anonymous, “Report of the Council” (ref. 15), 138–9.

Bond, op. cit. (ref. 8), 210, in the section on “Nucleus and envelopes”. The comet's tail was about 20° long at the time, and in the description of 2 October, only five days later, Bond commented that “The Comet's head much brighter than Arcturus” (p. 224).

Bond , op. cit. (ref. 8), for 27 September (p. 23), wrote:

Walton Common, Eng. Usherwood. ( Monthly Notices Royal Astr. Soc. , Vol. XIX, p. 139). A copy from the photograph of the Comet here noticed has been communicated to me by Carrington R. C. , Esq.

In his introductory “List of authorities for observations, drawings, &c. used in this Work” (pp. xvii–xix), he listed:

Usherwood, Walton Common, Eng., Monthly Notices Royal Astr. Soc. , Vol. XIX. Also copy of photograph of the Comet. From the correspondence, we now see that the “copy of photograph of the Comet” was the one in Bond's possession and not the one that has sent people looking in vain in the Monthly notices.

Norman , op. cit. (ref. 5), 576.

Norman , ibid. , also notes that variations in sensitivity of collodion plates at the time were significant.

Ibid .

No one at either the Harvard College Observatory or the Harvard University Archives knows of the photograph. Neither Peter Hingley of the Royal Astronomical Society nor Adam Perkins of the Cambridge University Library, Royal Greenwich Observatory Archives, has been able to locate a copy. Perkins has located (RGO 6/102 f110′) a note from Bond to Airy G. B. , the Astronomer Royal, dated 1861 March 14, describing a plate of the comet (RGO 6/102 f111′): “Enclosed is a proof from one of the plates to accompany an account of the Great Comet of 1858 which will form the next volume of our Annals. The difficulties of engraving objects of this character are very great but you will see that the artist has succeeded well.” However, there is no mention of Usherwood or photography. Such problems of reproduction are dealt with by Pang A. S. , “Victorian observing practices, printing technology, and representations of the solar corona, (1): The 1860s and 1870s”, Journal for the history of astronomy , xxv (1994), 249–74. The full quotation from E. S. H., “Notices from the Lick Observatory, Photographs of Donati's Comet in September 1858”, Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific , ix (1897), 89, reads: “Mr. Carrington sends another photograph of the comet to Bond, taken on September 27th by ??? [sic] with an exposure of 7 seconds, using a camera lens…. Carrington's enclosed photograph is not now to be found, I believe. The photograph was unknown to Dr. De la Rue, apparently (see Monthly Notices, R.A.S., Vol. XIX, p. 353). Both these photographs — the first ever made of comets — have remained unnoticed by all the historians of astronomical photography, up to this time, so far as I know”.

Anonymous, “Report of the Council” (ref. 15), 138–9. De La Rue made drawings of Donati's Comet, some of which were engraved in De La Rue W. , “Observations on Donati's Comet. 6: Observations by Mr. Warren De la Rue”, Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society , xxx (1862), 78–84, Plates VII-VIII, Figures 1–9. De La Rue adds on p. 84: “Two attempts were made to obtain photographs of the comet with my Newtonian, but without success, although 1 allowed on the last occasion five minutes' exposure of the sensitive plate.” For a summary of De La Rue's work on astronomical photography, see anonymous, “How Mr. De la Rue Photographed the Moon”, The British journal of “photography , xv (1868), 256–7, 270–1, 279–81.

Lankford J. , “The impact of photography on astronomy”, in The general history of astronomy, iv: Astrophysics and twentieth-century astronomy to 1950, ed. by Gingerich O. , Part A (Cambridge, 1984), 16–39, p. 17.

Anonymous, “Report of the Council” (ref. 15), 139.

Common A. A. , “Photography as applied to Comet b 1881”, The observatory , iv (1881), 232–3, p. 232. In the address awarding him the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society ( Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society , xliv (1884), 221–3), the President, Stone E. J. , said: “Thus availing himself of every increase of the sensitiveness of the prepared photographic plates and continually improving the control of the driving-clock, Common Mr. was able, on 1881 June 24, to obtain a photograph of the Comet b, which is probably the earliest successful photograph of any comet (although a photograph of the comet was obtained on the same night by Dr. Draper)….” As for the photograph, Common writes: “I went on to 20 minutes, finding with this latter exposure a result that I ought to have anticipated, but did not; this was that the rapid motion in declination, not being provided for, caused the image to be a trail on the plate some quarter of an inch long. As far as it went the picture was good — that is, it shows the nucleus, head, and part of the tail, more particularly that part, narrow and bright, that proceeded from the nucleus”.

Huggins W. , “On the photographic spectrum of Comet b 1881”, The observatory , iv (1881), 233–4 (from the Proceedings of the Royal Society, no. 213). The entire contribution of Draper H. , “Photographs of Comet b 1881”, The observatory , iv (1881), 239, reads: Sir,—. I succeeded in photographing the Comet in Auriga on Friday night, June 24th, 1881. Since then I have taken several photographs of it. One made last night [no date was printed] with an exposure of 2 hours 42 minutes shows the tail about 10° long. There are many stars on the plate, some shining through the tail. Yours faithfully,.

Madison Avenue, New York Henry Draper, Draper M.D. went on, in “Note on photographs of the spectrum of Comet b 1881”, ibid. , 252–3, to describe his photographic spectra. Tebbutt described his discovery of the comet in “Appearance of another southern comet (Comet b 1881)”, ibid. , 239–40. Three images of the comet made by Draper between 24 June and the time of Janssen's image are at the Hastings Historical Society, Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. Taken on 24 June (17 minute exposure), 25 June (41 minute exposure), and 28 June (4[?] minute exposure), they show extreme trailing, so that the tail does not appear clearly, unlike the 2 hour 42 minute exposure cited by Draper, whose whereabouts are unknown. We thank Muriel Olssen of the Society for her assistance. Neither the 2 hour 42 minute exposure discussed by Draper nor any other comet images exist at the Draper Archive at New York University's Bobst Library (for this information we thank Nancy Cricco), nor at the National Museum of American History of the Smithsonian Institution (for this information we thank Steven Turner).

De Vaucouleurs , op. cit. (ref. 13), Plate 8. He quotes ( ibid. , 41–43) Janssen's discussion of the difficulty of photographing comets and the importance of the new dry plates and a fast (f/3) telescope.

Hoffleit , op. cit. (ref. 2), 37. She writes (21 January 1996): “As for Tebbutt's comet III 1881, my references to Huggins and Draper are unfortunately secondary. Olivier C. P. in his Comets, 1930, p. 81, notes that it was photographed by Janssen and the spectrum photographed by Huggins on June 24, 1881, and by Draper ‘soon after’. In the National Academy Memoir on the life of Henry Draper there is this reference to his paper in the American Journal of Science, Ser. III, vol.22, p. 134, 1881, ‘On Photographs of the Spectrum of the Comet of June, 1881’.” She draws attention to two items by Huggins and one by Draper listed in Houzeau J. C. Lancaster A. , Bibliographie générate de l'astronomie ( Brussels , 1880–89), ii, 1654 and 1678. De Vaucouleurs, op. cit. (ref. 13), 43–44, writes that Draper's photograph shows 10° of tail.

De Vaucouleurs , op. cit. (ref. 13), Plate 8.

Lankford , op. cit. (ref. 25), 25.

Gill D. Allis E. H. , Enhanced Photograph of the Great Comet of 1882 (1882 II) on the night/day of 13 November / 7 November, 1882 , The Royal Observatory, Edinburgh no. 8343301, from Gill plate C4 no. 12; 100 minute exposure.

See, for example, Lankford , op. cit. (ref. 25), 32, and Gingerich O. , “The Great Comet and the ‘Carte’”, in The Great Copernicus Chase and other adventures in astronomical history (Cambridge, Mass., and Cambridge, 1992), 189–94, reprinted from Sky & telescope , lxiv (1982), 237–9. The American non-participation is further discussed in Dick S. J. , “Americans and the Astrographic Catalogue”, ibid. , lxv (1983), 301–2. An earlier discussion of the Great September Comet, the observations of Gill, and the Carte du Ciel, with a mention of the Harvard and Walton Common observations of Donati's Comet, appears in R. K. M., “Astronomical anecdotes: Daytime comets, a portrait lens, and three tons of star map”, ibid. , iii (1943), 17.