When we turn to the labours of Mr. Rutherfurd, we find him in 1857 armed
with a refractor of 11¼ inches aperture; the actinic focus, or rather
the nearest approach to a focus, was 7/10ths of an inch from the visual
focus. With this telescope, without any correction whatever, he, in 1857
and 1858, obtained photographs of the moon which, when enlarged to five
inches in diameter, were well defined. He also obtained impressions of
stars down to as far as the fifth magnitude, and also of double stars
some 3˝ apart—for instance, γ Virginis was photographed double. The ring
of Saturn and belts of Jupiter were also plainly visible, but
ill-defined. The satellites of Jupiter failed to give an image with any
exposure, while their primary did so in five or ten seconds. The actinic
rays, instead of coming to a point and producing an image of a
satellite, were spread over a certain area and thereby rendered too weak
to impress the plate.
In the summer of 1858 Mr. Rutherfurd combined his first stereograph of
the moon independently of Mr. De La Rue’s success in England.
Mr. Rutherfurd then commenced an inquiry of the greatest importance,
which will in time bring about a revolution in the processes employed.
In 1859 he attempted, by placing lenses of different curvatures between
the object-glass and the focus, to bring the chemical rays together,
leaving the visual rays out of the question; this had the effect of
shortening the focus considerably and improving the photographs; but he
found that, except for the middle of the field, this method would not
answer. He therefore in 1860 attempted another arrangement, and one
which he found answered extremely well for short telescopes.
Between the lenses of the object-glass of a 4½-inch refractor he put a
ring which separated the lenses by three-quarters of an inch, and
reduced the power of the flint-glass lens, which corrects the
crown-glass for colour, so that the combination became achromatic for
the violet rays instead of for the yellow. With this lens he was
successful to a certain extent: he obtained even better results than
with the 11¼ inch; but eventually he rejected this method, which we may
add has recently been tested by M. Cornu, who thinks very highly of it.
He next attempted a silver-on-glass mirror in 1861; in the atmosphere of
New York it only lasted ten days; he gave it up; and he then very
bravely, in 1864, attacked the project _de novo_, and began an
object-glass of a telescope which should be constructed so as to give
best definition with the actinic rays, just as ordinary object-glasses
are made to act best with the visual rays.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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