Photographic plates, cosmic distance ladder and gas clouds

Two Harvard female astronomers, an anniversary and a photo exhibition to retrace some brilliant discoveries in science.

Some Harvard female astronomers were also honoured by a well-known toy manufacturer.

In a society racing towards digital information and the extreme volatility of every communication exchange, what effect can it have to remember what came before, not even too long ago?

How much information can a photographic plate give us back

In 1839, Louis Daguerre, the father of the daguerreotype, took the first image depicting a human being, and by the end of the 19th century, the new technology in the field of astronomy, photography, was introduced.

This was the right start to produce the great star catalogues, both in America, Draper, and in Europe, La Carte du Ciel, and to put the scientific draftsmen to rest after centuries of honourable work.

Astronomical observatories large and small equip themselves with cameras and each clear night churn out plates on which the observed celestial objects are fixed. The next morning, these delicate, thin rectangles or squares of glass pass into the offices to be analysed, and from Harvard starts an incredible story in so many ways.