Admire the first picture of the eclipse of 1851

The first photo taken of the total solar eclipse was born more than a century ago but has shown a remarkable level of advanced camera science and technology.

For many North Americans, the solar eclipse taken on August 21, 2017 will be the rare total solar eclipse that people can admire, take pictures and observe the whole scene.

Total eclipse.

Yet few people know that, since the 1851s when camera technology was rudimentary, people were able to capture equally realistic eclipse scenes, cameras and telescopes now.

The image below is taken from a German photographer, Johann Julius Friedrich Berkowski . He is considered the first person to take photos of the total solar eclipse in the world.

Photo of the eclipse of 1851.

It is known that the German Royal Observatory is the organization that commissioned Berkowski to make this photo. Up to that point, no one had been able to capture the exact Corona moment (the glowing aura around the Sun at the occurrence of the eclipse). A photo of an eclipse is taken after the sun is full after the shadow of the Moon. However, it took 84 seconds to take the picture.

According to an Acta Historica Astronomiae article, the photo was taken with a small refracting telescope attached to the Fraunhofer radiometer 15.8 cm long.

Since the first solar eclipse photograph was born in 1851, there have been many other astronomers also experimenting with eclipse and eclipse scenes many years later.

Photo taken eclipse in Shelbyville, Kentucky, USA in 1869 (American Maritime Observatory).

The eclipse phenomenon on January 24, 1925 (Fred Goetz).

The eclipse photograph in Denmark in 1896 (Ola J. Joensen).

The real moon is about 1880 (Joseph F. Reiff).

Two photographs of the total solar eclipse taken on July 18, 1860 in Rivabellosa, Spain (Warren De la Rue).