Astronomy’s Glass Archive: Photographic Practices at the Observatory, 1850-1950

• Applicant: Professor Omar Nasim, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: History of Science
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 446722167

In this project, we investigate the material, industrial and performative role of glass plate photography in astronomy between 1850 and 1950. The focus is on astrophotography as part of a global history of practices and to illuminate the industry that developed around astrophotography. So far, we know relatively little about the practices of glass plate photography in the 19th and 20th centuries and the cultural and scientific role that collaborations between astronomers and the photographic industry played here. Glass plate photography dominated every aspect of astronomy between 1850 and 1950, producing innumerable images of the stars, the Sun, the Moon, and star spectra. Everyday work with and on these plates left marks, notes and stickers which were made or fixed directly on the plates. These traces, as well as information about the industrial production of the plates and their treatment before exposure provide important information about the performativity of astronomical knowledge gained by means of glass plate photography. At the same time, the traces also point to a large multinational market for photographic raw and finished materials. Our project highlights the historical significance of the plates in their materiality as bearers of a unique form of material history that is not available in paper documents. We will evaluate archival materials from the Royal Greenwich Observatory (RGO) and the observatories in Harvard, Leiden, Heidelberg and Hamburg and relate them to sources from the Kodak, Ilford and Zeiss archives. This transnational collection of material includes the production and treatment of plates before exposure as well as photographed data and notes taken on the plates or in accompanying notebooks after exposure. Our project goes beyond the current state of research by providing an insight into how scientists dealt with photography in their everyday practices and how standards for the production and use of glass plate photography in astronomy and beyond were established. We want to show that the "information" contained on these glass objects goes beyond the image. With the support of the owning institutions, we are applying for DFG funding to conduct a comparative study of the transnational use of glass plate photography in collections at observatories in the USA, Germany, the UK and the Netherlands. This funding provides a unique opportunity to bring together knowledge, observational, and industrial practices that are rarely combined.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants