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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class as a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a show that reveals a little bit more about history

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Speaker 1: every day. I'm Gay Bluesier, and in this episode, we're

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Speaker 1: celebrating a milestone in the early days of astro photography,

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Speaker 1: the world's first clear, up close look at the surface

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Speaker 1: of the Moon. The day was March eighteen forty amateur

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Speaker 1: photographer John William Draper reported his success in taking detailed

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Speaker 1: images of the Moon. He made the announcement to the

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Speaker 1: New York Lyceum of Natural History, or the Academy of

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Speaker 1: Sciences as it's known today. A focused image of the

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Speaker 1: Moon's surface would have been big news for members of

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Speaker 1: that scientifics society. It was a chance to finally see

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Speaker 1: the craters, mountains, and valleys that they had previously only

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Speaker 1: glimpsed in drawings. For centuries, astronomers were limited to sketching

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Speaker 1: all the details they saw through their telescopes by hand.

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Speaker 1: This provided a rough idea of what they were seeing,

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Speaker 1: but it was hardly a perfect system. Looking back and

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Speaker 1: forth between the telescope and the paper meant that important

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Speaker 1: details were often left out along the way. Plus, if

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Speaker 1: the astronomer wasn't a good artist. It was hard to

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Speaker 1: tell what you were even looking at. The invention of

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Speaker 1: photography proved there was a better way. Draper's images were

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Speaker 1: captured using the daguerrotype method, which involved the use of

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Speaker 1: light and chemicals to fix the photographic image onto a

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Speaker 1: metal plate. The technique's namesake, Louis de Gare, had invented

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Speaker 1: the process in France two years earlier. Right away, French

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Speaker 1: astronomers started asking to get to photograph the Moon for them,

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Speaker 1: and he happily obliged. It's widely believed that de Gare

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Speaker 1: took the very first photo of the Moon on January second,

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Speaker 1: eighteen thirty nine, and then followed it up with several others. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: he never managed to capture the Moon in focus, and

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Speaker 1: the shots he did get were destroyed in a fire

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Speaker 1: just two months later. All of de gres written records

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Speaker 1: of the experiments, along with that historical first photo of

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Speaker 1: the Moon and all the ones he took after were lost.

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Speaker 1: For the scientific community. It was one exciting step forward

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Speaker 1: and two agonizing steps back. But good news would arrive

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Speaker 1: just one year later, when a chemistry professor in New

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Speaker 1: York named John Draper heard of the Daguerreo type process

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Speaker 1: and decided to try it for himself. Draper dabbled with

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Speaker 1: photography in his spare time and was captivated by the

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Speaker 1: chemistry of light sensitive materials. When news of Dagar's breakthrough

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Speaker 1: process arrived in America, Draper quickly replicated the method in

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Speaker 1: the fall of eighteen thirty nine, and then began experimenting

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Speaker 1: with ways to further improve it. Over the next several months,

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Speaker 1: Draper succeeded in making a faster, more efficient way to

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Speaker 1: take pictures. The earliest of his surviving Degaro types is

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Speaker 1: an image of his thirty three year old sister, Dorothy

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Speaker 1: Catherine Draper. Soon after it was taken, Draper set aside

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Speaker 1: skyward and chose the surface of the Moon as his

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Speaker 1: next subject. In the winter of early eighteen forty, Draper

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Speaker 1: tried several times to take photos of the Moon from

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Speaker 1: the rooftop observatory of New York University, where he taught,

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Speaker 1: But just like de Gare a year earlier, Draper couldn't

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Speaker 1: get a clear shot. They all came out under exposed

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Speaker 1: or way too blurry. But then in mid March, Draper

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Speaker 1: hit on a winning formula and got his timing just right.

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Speaker 1: He can finitely reported his findings to the New York

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Speaker 1: Lyceum on March revealing that he had obtained the first

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Speaker 1: focused images of the Moon. So while John Draper may

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Speaker 1: not have been the first person to capture an image

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Speaker 1: of the Moon, by all accounts, he was the first

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Speaker 1: to get a shot of it in focus. Unfortunately, that

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Speaker 1: original shot didn't survive to the modern day, with much

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Speaker 1: of Draper's work lost to a fire, once again, just

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Speaker 1: like to Gear before him, Draper's notes and report of

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Speaker 1: his success to the Lyceum are the only surviving evidence

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Speaker 1: of his breakthrough. That said, Draper does still hold the

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Speaker 1: record for having taken the earliest surviving photo of the Moon.

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Speaker 1: It just wasn't the first one that he took. The

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Speaker 1: photo in question is believed to have been made just

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Speaker 1: three days after his historic announcement on March twenty three,

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Speaker 1: and it shows the Moon in the last quarter phase,

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Speaker 1: with the left half of the lunar surface clearly illuminated.

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Speaker 1: It's all so believed to be the first photo of

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Speaker 1: the Moon to be publicly exhibited, after being placed on

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Speaker 1: display at the New York Lyceum on April thirteenth, eighteen forty,

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Speaker 1: but people weren't as impressed as you might expect, According

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Speaker 1: to the Metropolitan Museum of Art quote. Despite his accomplishment,

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Speaker 1: Draper's efforts received only modest recognition from his contemporaries. His son, Henry, however,

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Speaker 1: was fascinated by his father's lunar portraits. In the decades

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Speaker 1: to come, Henry would follow in his dad's footsteps, ultimately

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Speaker 1: taking more than a thousand photos of the Moon, as

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Speaker 1: well as other heavenly bodies, including the Sun, planets, comets,

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Speaker 1: and stars. His work filled in so many missing details

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Speaker 1: about the Moon's surface that a lunar crater was later

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Speaker 1: named in his honor. Draper's granddaughter, Antonia Morey, also carried

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Speaker 1: on the family business. She became a respected astronomer in

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Speaker 1: the early twentieth cent tree, which, given her gender, was

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Speaker 1: no easy feat at the time. As for John Draper,

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Speaker 1: he eventually got his due as well. Today, he's remembered

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Speaker 1: as the father of astro photography, the first to provide

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Speaker 1: a detailed look at our planet's closest neighbor. I'm Gabe

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Speaker 1: Lousier and hopefully you now know a little more about

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Speaker 1: history today than you did yesterday. You can learn even

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Speaker 1: more about history by following us on Twitter, Facebook, and

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Speaker 1: Instagram at t d i HC Show, and if you

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Speaker 1: have any comments or suggestions, you can always send them

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Speaker 1: my way at this day at I heart media dot com.

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Speaker 1: Thanks to Chandler May's for producing the show, and thank

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Speaker 1: you for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow

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Speaker 1: for another day in History class