DFG Project: Astronomy’s Glass Archive: Photographic Practices at the Observatory, 1850–1950 DFG Project (NA 1276/2-1)
Project by Prof. Dr Omar W. Nasim
Mercator Fellow: Professor Kelley Wilder (Director, Photographic History Research Centre, De Montfort University, UK).
Start: 15 January 2021
Our project combines the history of photography and the history of science to examine the role and significance of photographic materials and practices in shaping and reshaping astronomy during the era of glass-plate photography. Aside from paper catalogues of stars, the routine work with and on glass plates left a trail of marks, notes and labels made or affixed directly onto the plates. These traces, together with industrial information about plate manufacture and supply, photographic emulsions and pre-exposure treatments, are important indicators of how astronomical knowledge was produced through glass plate photography. Our research goes beyond contemporary scholarship’s reliance on printed photography by revealing how it was used by scientists in their painstaking, day-to-day practices and techniques, and how standards were established for the manufacture and use of glass-plate photography in astronomy and beyond. In both cases, the materiality of photography will be central. We aim to demonstrate that the ‘information’ contained on these glass objects extends beyond the image. They serve as indices of large transnational markets in photographic raw and finished materials; issues of storage, preservation and maintenance; and global networks of observatories consolidating scientific practices. Based on extensive archival research in collections in Germany, the UK, the USA and the Netherlands, we detail the emergence of epistemic cultures at the observatory that remediated and implicated new spaces, labour, technologies and personnel. In addition to the ecological and ontological implications of these cultures for the history of photography and science, the circulation of photographs through global systems involved imperial, colonial and postcolonial dimensions that will be given due consideration in this analysis of transnational networks.
See also Photography in the History of Observation and
See also the new DFG project website (external link, opens in a new window)
Team Members:
Prof. Dr Omar W. Nasim – Principal Investigator
Prof. Dr Kelley Wilder – DFG Mercator Fellow
Dr Buket Altinoba – Project Affiliate
Dr Chaokang Tai – Postdoctoral Researcher
Katharina Bick – PhD student and researcher
