Today in the history of astronomy, Isaac Roberts took the first picture of ‘Andromeda Nebula’.
When Isaac Roberts took the first photograph of the Andromeda Galaxy in 1888, the general consensus was that he was looking at a nebula. Credit: Courtesy of Linda Hall Library
- Welsh amateur astronomer Isaac Roberts, after retiring, established a personal observatory in Merseyside dedicated to astronomical imaging.
- Roberts developed long-exposure astrophotography techniques using a 20-inch reflector paired with a 7-inch refractor for tracking.
- On December 29, 1888, he took the first photograph of what was then identified as the Andromeda Nebula.
- Early interpretations by Roberts and contemporaries saw the spiral structure as a forming star system, a perspective that was corrected by Edwin Hubble’s cosmic distance analysis in the 1930s, identifying it as a neighboring galaxy.
After Welsh amateur astronomer Isaac Roberts retired from his career in engineering and manufacturing, he devoted his life to imagining the heavens. Using a 20-inch reflector with a 7-inch refractor mounted on top for tracking, Roberts established a personal observatory in Merseyside and developed techniques for long-exposure astrophotography. From there, on December 29, 1888, he took the first photograph of the Andromeda Galaxy (then known as the Andromeda Nebula). Roberts and contemporary scientists thought that the spiral structure meant they were looking at the middle formation of a star system; It was not until Edwin Hubble’s analysis of cosmic distances in the 1930s that the object was thought to be a neighboring galaxy.
