Arizona weekly enterprise., 1882-02-25
TAKING DIANAs PHOTOGRAPH.
The Way the Astronomers Make the IncOnstant Moon Sit for Her Like ness.

The Way the Astronomers Make the IncOnstnnt Moon Sit for Her Like ness.
 lFrom the Baltimore Newsl
 Photographs of the moon are not mere scientific curiosities. They not only serve useful purpose in astronomical research, but they have commercial value. Few collections of stereoscopic views are destitute of one or more of these photographs. They are as popular as pictures of some actresses. The way these views are obtained is interesting. Everybody knows that a stereoscopic picture of person or a waterfall Is got by combining two pictures of the object taken from different standpoints, so that each shows a little around the corner. and the two being combined make the object a pear to stand out in lifelike perspective. To produce the same effect with the moon, advantage is taken of the fact that she vibrates, or rolls little upon her center, in swinging about the earth, so that at one time we see little more of one side than usual, and at an- other time of the other side. When two photographs of the moon, taken at op- poslte hbrations, are combined by the stereoscope, the lunar orb seems sus- pended before the eyes like ball that the hand can grasp.
 America is ahead of Europe in the art of celestial photography. Enqlishmen of science, who, like all Englishmen, have q keen eve for the detection of special excellence in the work of their own countrymen, admit this They say that the photographs of the moon taken by Mir. Lewis M Rutherford, of New York, are better than those taken by their own Delarue, who is SO conspicu- ous an astronomer that one of the oceans ot the planet Mars has been named after him. Mir. RTtherford's lunar photo graphs are so fine that they can be suf- firlently magnitied to furnish better view of the moons rocky scenery than many amateur astronomers can obtain with the full power of their telescopes. Everybody has seen what is called the old moon in the new moons arms" When the moon, only a few days old. appears as narrow crescent, the unilluminated portion of her orb is seen shining with a faint, ashy light. This light comes from the earth, and is reflected back bv the moon just as the landscape is faintly visible in full mnon- shire. A few weeks ago. NJ. Janssen, of Paris, succeeded in making photographs of the moon that showed this phenome- non clearly. So light that spranq from the sun was reflected from the fields and waterS of the earth to the moon, was | thrown hack from her stony surface to the earth again, and after this triple | journey yet retained enough power to stamp the faint picture of lunar land scares upon a photographic plate.
 Mo0n photographs are taken hv the aid of telescopes, the prepared plate be- ing fixed at the focus of the instrument in the place of the eve piece They are obtnined only one or two inches in di- ] ameter. and have to he enlarged. Fine ones will bear heinz enlarged to a diam eter of two or three feet. MT. Rnther- ford nses refracting telescope to photo graph the moon. the object glass being peculiarly rrected SO that it focuses the actinic ravs. Most other xstronomi. cal photographers use rehecting tAle. scopes, in which concave mirror takes the place of an object glass.
 The moon is not the only celestial object whose picture can he taken. Pho tographs are also made of the sun. show ise the spots and the phenomena o eclipses. Venus and Mercury have beer photographed when in tysn.it scro-- th, suns disk. Even stars can be photo graphed, and recently Prof Draper. Q this city. succeeded in photographine the Great Nehula of Orion, which as tronomers believe to be an enormon mass of gaseous matter co7ta'ning il itself the germs of future world anC suns.