Lewis M. Rutherfurd
1870, September (taken)
Sonnenfleckengruppe, New York, September 1870 [Sonnenfleckengruppe in ihren Veränderungen an sieben Tagen.]

Salt print, from glass negative
Bazar Nadar / Wouter Lambrechts
(Wouter Lambrechts, pers. email, 16 June 2023) Photographed by Rutherfurd, salt print by Fr. Hundt in Münster after the original glass negatives. Published by George Westermann in Braunschweig in "Die Sonne : die wichtigeren neuen Entdeckungen über ihren Bau, ihre Strahlungen, ihre Stellung im Weltall und ihr Verhältniss zu den übrigen Himmelskörpern", P. Angelo Secchi, 1872
 
Lewis Morris Rutherfurd (1816-1892) was a passionate amateur in astronomy. He has a special place in both histories of photography and astronomy as a pioneer of the photography as a tool of the astronomer. He played an important role in the "New Astronomy" together with Jules Janssen, Hermann W. Vogel and Norman Lockyer. Rutherford developed special lenses, altogether with the optician and daguerreotypist Henry Fitz. (Roberto Ferrari: Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography, Vol. 2 Routledge 2008)
 
These images of sun-spots were photographed in New York on 19, 20, 22, 23, 24 and 26 September 1870. Photographs are numbered in the negative. Printed information tags on the verso.
 
Salt print on a mount ca. 11,5 x 18,7 cm (this photographic print was "Taf. II." in the book "Die Sonne", see last image from the Rijksmuseum for reference only)
 
Literature: Die Sonne : die wichtigeren neuen Entdeckungen über ihren Bau, ihre Strahlungen, ihre Stellung im Weltall und ihr Verhältniss zu den übrigen Himmelskörpern, P. Angelo Secchi, 1872 (a copy is in the Rijksmuseum library)
 
LL/126949