[X] My Assistant

[Member 267]

Does anyone know what is regarded as the first photograph
that is space related; the moon, a planet, a star field or whatever
it may be and if it can be viewed online someplace?

Google was not my friend here.

[NGC3314]

This timeline shows the earliest star photographs in 1857 (Mizar and Alcor from the Harvard refractor). The next year saw the first successful comet photograph (the amazingly spectacular Donati). The Orion nebula was registered in 1880, and after that things really took off. (I've used photographs from as far back as 1895 to look for variability of quasars in the fields of galaxies, repeating the exposure using the same telescope, modern emulsions, and filters to approximate the spectral response of old blue-sensitive emulsion plus a silver-on-glass primary mirror).

[tedstryk]

Interesting, although it has some serious errors. Holden, working for Pickering, as an example, photographed Mars at Lick Observatory from 1888-1892. Pickering was not involved at all in actually taking the images, although he claimed credit in several publications. And Pic du Midi had nothing to do with it.

I did a blog entry on the set some time ago