Cameras

American John Draper photographed the Moon as early as 1840 by applying the daguerreotype process. The French physicists A.-H.-L. Fizeau and J.-B.-L. Foucault succeeded in making a photographic image of the Sun in 1845. Five years later astronomers at Harvard Observatory took the first photographs of the stars.

The use of photographic equipment in conjunction with telescopes benefited astronomers greatly, giving them two distinct advantages: first, photographic images provided a permanent record of celestial phenomena, and, second, photographic plates integrated the light from celestial sources over long periods of time and thereby permitted astronomers to see much-fainter objects than they would be able to observe visually. Typically, the camera’s photographic plate (or film) was mounted in the focal plane of the telescope. The plate or film consisted of glass or of a plastic material that was covered with a thin layer of a silver compound. The light striking the photographic medium caused the silver compound to undergo a chemical change. When processed, a negative image resulted; i.e., the brightest spots (the Moon and the stars, for example) appeared as the darkest areas on the plate or the film. In the 1980s the CCD supplanted photography in the production of astronomical images.

Spectrographs

Newton noted the interesting way in which a piece of glass can break up light into different bands of colour, but it was not until 1814 that the German physicist Joseph von Fraunhofer discovered the lines of the solar spectrum and laid the basis for spectroscopy. The spectrograph consists of a slit, a collimator, a prism for dispersing the light, and a focusing lens. The collimator is an optical device that produces parallel rays from a focal plane source—i.e., it gives the appearance that the source is located at an infinite distance. The spectrograph enables astronomers to analyze the chemical composition of planetary atmospheres, stars, nebulae, and other celestial objects. A bright line in the spectrum indicates the presence of a glowing gas radiating at a wavelength characteristic of the chemical element in the gas. A dark line in the spectrum usually means that a cooler gas has intervened and absorbed the lines of the element characteristic of the intervening material. The lines may be displaced to either the red end or the blue end of the spectrum. This effect was first noted in 1842 by the Austrian physicist Christian Johann Doppler. When a light source is approaching, the lines are shifted toward the blue end of the spectrum, and when the source is receding, the lines are shifted toward its red end. This effect, known as the Doppler effect, permits astronomers to study the relative motions of celestial objects with respect to Earth’s motion.

The slit of the spectrograph is placed at the focal plane of the telescope. The resulting spectrum may be recorded photographically or with some kind of electronic detector, such as a photomultiplier tube, CCD, or CID. If no recording device is used, then the optical device is technically referred to as a spectroscope.

Photomultiplier tubes

The photomultiplier tube is an enhanced version of the photocell, which was first used by astronomers to record data electronically. The photocell contains a photosensitive surface that generates an electric current when struck by light from a celestial source. The photosensitive surface is positioned just behind the focus. A diaphragm of very small aperture is usually placed in the focal plane to eliminate as much of the background light of the sky as possible. A small lens is used to focus the focal plane image on the photosensitive surface, which, in the case of a photomultiplier tube, is referred to as the photocathode. In the photomultiplier tube a series of special sensitive plates are arranged geometrically to amplify or multiply the electron stream. Frequently, magnifications of a million are achieved by this process.

The photomultiplier tube has a distinct advantage over the photographic plate. With the photographic plate the relationship between the brightness of the celestial source and its registration on the plate is not linear. In the case of the photomultiplier tube, however, the release of electrons in the tube is directly proportional to the intensity of light from the celestial source. This linear relationship is very useful for working over a wide range of brightness. A disadvantage of the photomultiplier tube is that only one object can be recorded at a time. The output from such a device is sent to a recorder or digital storage device to produce a permanent record.

Charge-coupled devices

The charge-coupled device (CCD) uses a light-sensitive material on a silicon chip to electronically detect photons in a way similar to the photomultiplier tube. The principal difference is that the chip also contains integrated microcircuitry required to transfer the detected signal along a row of discrete picture elements (or pixels) and thereby scan a celestial object or objects very rapidly. When individual pixels are arranged simply in a single row, the detector is referred to as a linear array. When the pixels are arranged in rows and columns, the assemblage is called a two-dimensional array.

Pixels can be assembled in various sizes and shapes. The Hubble Space Telescope has a CCD detector with a 1,600 × 1,600 pixel array. Actually, there are four 800 × 800 pixel arrays mosaicked together. The sensitivity of a CCD is 100 times greater than a photographic plate and so has the ability to quickly scan objects such as planets, nebulae, and star clusters and record the desired data. Another feature of the CCD is that the detector material may be altered to provide more sensitivity at different wavelengths. Thus, some detectors are more sensitive in the blue region of the spectrum than in the red region.

Today, most large observatories use CCDs to record data electronically. Another similar device, the charge injection device, is sometimes employed. The basic difference between the CID and the CCD is in the way the electric charge is transferred before it is recorded; however, the two devices may be used interchangeably as far as astronomical work is concerned.