What The Oldest Known Photographs Tell Us About History

As photography gained momentum, scientists realized that it could be an important tool. Someone could take an accurate photograph of a scientific phenomenon and save it for study at a later time. For astronomers, who could spend hours hunched over telescope eyepieces and even longer hours trying to reproduce what they had seen, photography was a huge advancement. However, they did have to start fairly close to home. The first surviving photograph of the moon, which is a mere 238,855 miles from Earth, according to NASA, was taken in 1840.

As per Lights in the Dark, this photo, which is also very likely the first photograph taken of anything astronomical, was made by John W. Draper. A scientist, philosopher, and university professor, Draper captured the image of the moon by improving on Louis Daguerre's method of exposing a metal plate coated with light-sensitive chemicals. The resulting image, now heavily damaged, was at the time Draper's best effort, which he proudly displayed at the New York Lyceum.

Five years later, Slate claims, French scientists Hippolyte Fizeau and Léon Foucault used a similar daguerreotype process to take a picture of the sun. They faced a tougher time, as the bright sun demanded that they reduce the exposure as much as possible to pick out features like sunspots on the surface of our nearest star.