From the days when telescopes were only the size of you, rather than your house.
The first ever photo of a Black Hole instantly went viral when it was revealed to the public last week, but did you know that the Earth’s astronomers have been snapping shots of galactic matter for more than a century now?
Take a look at the first image of the Andromeda Galaxy, taken 130 years ago by amateur astronomer Isaac Roberts. Although Roberts was an engineer and businessman by trade, he was best known for pioneering the field of nebulae astrophotography.
Andromeda Galaxy, taken by Isaac Roberts in 1887.
Taken with infrared light on December 29, 1887, the photo makes the galaxy look like white swirling gas. At that time, it was still thought to be a galaxy within the Milky Way, and Roberts thought it was a nebula that showed a solar system as it formed. Judging from the photo, we’ve definitely come a long way with our high-definition, high-resolution images.
The Andromeda Galaxy is the nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way, although it’s about 780 kiloparsecs away from our planet. It was named after the Andromeda constellation, which in turn was named after Princess Andromeda, the daughter of the vain Queen Cassiopeia and King Cepheus in Greek mythology.
