The Crab Nebula in 1844

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
In message , Martin Brown
writes

One possibility not so far been mentioned is that at the time the
brightest part really did look something more like his drawing.
Secular changes in supernovae remnants are well documented.
See for example:

http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m001.html

a candle flame appearence. The central core mesh of filaments may well
have been brighter in the past.

Good point! The Crab has expanded by more than 10% in that time, and the
pulsar has presumably slowed.

I doubt slowing of the pulsar plays any part. They are among the most
stable clocks in the universe with a fairly small deceleration rate due
to drag (at least over hundreds of years). OTOH a 10% expansion is 30%
in volume and a corresponding drop in temperature if it is adiabatic.

Evolution and movement of the shockwaves inside the nebula is probably
as important in terms of how it looked.

Are there any surviving drawings by William Lassell? He apparently saw
filaments in 1852.
"With 160x it is a very bright nebula, with two or three stars in it,
but with 565x...Long filaments run out from all sides and there seems to
be a number of minute and faint stars scattered over it; the outlying
claws are only just circumscribed by the edge of the field of 6'
diameter...".
http://members.leapmail.net/~ericj/m1_saturn.html

The oldest book I have with a plate of the Rosse sketch is an 1892 star
atlas. The text on the Crab Nebula reads as follows:

1157, Nebula in Taurus, Seen as far back as 1731, by Messier, but
imprefectly, and described by him as a starless nebula, something like a
dull flame. W. Herschel though it capable of being resolved, and alluded
to it as a magnificent object. Lord Rosse, with his great telescope, was
the first to obtain an exact view of the nebula; he compared its
appearence to that of a crab (crab-nebula); he saw several very minute
stars in it, and gave a drawing of the whole. Dreyer, however, asserts
that all the former representations of this nebula fail to give a
satisfactory description of its appearance seen through a telescope of
the highest power.

Seems like it would be worth tracking down Dreyers sketches. I just
found a one line statement in Stephen O'Meara's book "The Messier
Objects" that Rosse subsequently repudiated his crab nebula sketch (but
the name stuck). I don't know how accurate this is. Anyone find another
reference to this?

And when was it first photographed? An early photo wouldn't be sensitive
to red light, though.

I don't know. I guess it must have been have been fairly high on the
list after the brightest objects like the Pleiades, M42, M31.

Regards,
Martin Brown

In message , Martin Brown
writes
Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
In message , Martin Brown
writes

One possibility not so far been mentioned is that at the time the
brightest part really did look something more like his drawing.
Secular changes in supernovae remnants are well documented.
See for example:

http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m001.html

a candle flame appearence. The central core mesh of filaments may
well have been brighter in the past.
Good point! The Crab has expanded by more than 10% in that time, and
the pulsar has presumably slowed.

I doubt slowing of the pulsar plays any part. They are among the most
stable clocks in the universe with a fairly small deceleration rate due
to drag (at least over hundreds of years). OTOH a 10% expansion is 30%
in volume and a corresponding drop in temperature if it is adiabatic.

Oops. Volume vs. area. Thanks :-)
But I think you're wrong about the pulsar slowing. It's apparently been
known almost since it was discovered that it's the slowing that is the
source of energy for the Crab (I'm old enough to remember the marvellous
"Horizon" documentary "The Crab Nebula" that described this !) There's
a nice review at
http://users.bigpond.net.au/hwendt/Documents/hwendt-reseach-project.pdf
which quotes the original paper on this as saying it is slowing by 36
nanoseconds per day. If I've done my sums right it's slowed by 2
milliseconds since Rosse drew it.

And when was it first photographed? An early photo wouldn't be
sensitive to red light, though.

I don't know. I guess it must have been have been fairly high on the
list after the brightest objects like the Pleiades, M42, M31.

The same review says "the first photographs were obtained in 1892 with a
20-inch telescope. These showed the fuzzy filamentary structure of the
nebula and the lack of resolved stars". Where are they? :-)

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
In message , Martin Brown
writes

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:

In message , Martin Brown
writes

a candle flame appearence. The central core mesh of filaments may
well have been brighter in the past.

Good point! The Crab has expanded by more than 10% in that time, and
the pulsar has presumably slowed.

I doubt slowing of the pulsar plays any part. They are among the most
stable clocks in the universe with a fairly small deceleration rate
due to drag (at least over hundreds of years). OTOH a 10% expansion is
30% in volume and a corresponding drop in temperature if it is adiabatic.

Oops. Volume vs. area. Thanks :-)
But I think you're wrong about the pulsar slowing.

Err. Yes. The clock is very stable only after you take off the
measurable deceleration parameter. Carol & Ostlie give P' = 4.21x10^-13
you are correct. My mistake!

It's apparently been
known almost since it was discovered that it's the slowing that is the
source of energy for the Crab (I'm old enough to remember the marvellous
"Horizon" documentary "The Crab Nebula" that described this !) There's
a nice review at
http://users.bigpond.net.au/hwendt/Documents/hwendt-reseach-project.pdf
which quotes the original paper on this as saying it is slowing by 36
nanoseconds per day. If I've done my sums right it's slowed by 2
milliseconds since Rosse drew it.

Seems about right - a lot more than I had expected.

And when was it first photographed? An early photo wouldn't be
sensitive to red light, though.

I don't know. I guess it must have been have been fairly high on the
list after the brightest objects like the Pleiades, M42, M31.

The same review says "the first photographs were obtained in 1892 with a
20-inch telescope. These showed the fuzzy filamentary structure of the
nebula and the lack of resolved stars". Where are they? :-)

How many 20" scopes were there in around in 1892 at observatories with
an active photographic program ? It would be fun to find a centruy old
image of the Crab Nebula. I suspect it may have been done to measure
acceleration of the wisps in the nebula but a quick check on ADS didn't
find any long timebase secular change/expansion papers.

The only one I found was a radio over a 5y timeline 5GHz & 1.5GHz.
http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//...00059.000.html

And of deep observations of the radio shell
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/ApJ.../5521/sc0.html

The ones above are not light reading. The one below is...

A nice paper from Science reviewing the pulsar is at:
http://solomon.as.utexas.edu/~duncan/Irion1.pdf

Regards,
Martin Brown

The same review says "the first photographs were obtained in 1892 with a
20-inch telescope. These showed the fuzzy filamentary structure of the
nebula and the lack of resolved stars". Where are they? :-)

How many 20" scopes were there in around in 1892 at observatories with
an active photographic program ? It would be fun to find a centruy old
image of the Crab Nebula. I suspect it may have been done to measure
acceleration of the wisps in the nebula but a quick check on ADS didn't
find any long timebase secular change/expansion papers.

I might suggest that the 20" telescope that could have been used in
1892 would have been the Grubb-built reflector owned by Dr. Isaac
Roberts at his Starfield Observatory in Sussex. A picture of it is
found in this bio:

http://brynjones.members.beeb.net/wa..._iroberts.html

Roberts indeed had an active photographic program at that time. His
plan was at first to produce a photographic survey of the entire
northern sky, but he cancelled his project in 1887 when learning in
Paris of the plans for the famous (and eventually abandoned) "Carte du
Ciel", turning instead to a program of photographing nebulae. His
October 1887 photograph of the Andromeda "nebula" (as galaxies were
then known) preserved the first permanent image of its spiral shape,
hard to detect in typical narrow-field observatory refractors. That
picture is shown in the biography whose URL is given above.

You may see pictures of Roberts and his wife, Dr. Dorothea
Klumpke-Roberts, in my second of three articles on the history of the
Horsehead nebula at:

http://home.earthlink.net/~astro-app...head/B33_2.htm

In addition to many excellent early photographic images of very famous
objects known to all astronomers at the time -- such as M42, M31, M33,
and diverse nebulae -- showing the superb resolution and accuracy of
his telescope, Roberts also captured one of the finest early images of
the Horsehead nebula in 1900 (shown in the article referenced above.)

Dr. David Malin touches on this Roberts image -- "In the Shadow of the
Horsehead Nebula" -- in an article he wrote for Sky and Telescope,
September 1987 (p. 253-57). I might add that I've discussed Roberts
with him, and to quote Malin, "I think you are a bit harsh on Roberts.
Certainly he made wild remarks about what he was photographing but he
[was] not unique in that."

(You see, I am a Californian, and a Lick Observatory volunteer. Lick
astronomers, including the second director, James Keeler, had not a
very high opinion of Roberts, as he often overstepped his bounds as an
enthusiastic amateur astronomer and made somewhat preposterous
pronouncements on cosmology that no professional astronomer of the
time could support.)

I should add that in addition to the controversy over Roberts' ideas
about cosmology and astrophysics, he was severely criticized by Edward
E. Barnard. Roberts' photos were done with exposures that were one
half to one fourth as long as ones that were made typically by Barnard
or Wolf; no wonder Roberts secured pictures that had little trace of
the nebulosity that his professional contemporaries were able to
record! The pictures he published, however, were well-guided and
cleanly reproduced.

I no longer have convenient access to the Roberts Atlas prepared by
his widow but it should be a matter of no great difficulty to see if
the Crab nebula is on one of the plates included therein. And since
Roberts was by no means a shrinking violet, he made every effort to
publish his remarkable images in both the popular scientific press --
especially "Knowledge" -- and professional organs such as "The
Astrophysical Journal"; one could look for late 19th century photos of
the Crab to see if he had contributed to discussions of the object.

Yours,
Astro-App
Horsehead nebula website:
http://home.earthlink.net/~astro-app...ead/index.html

AstroApp wrote:
The same review says "the first photographs were obtained in 1892 with a
20-inch telescope. These showed the fuzzy filamentary structure of the
nebula and the lack of resolved stars". Where are they? :-)

How many 20" scopes were there in around in 1892 at observatories with
an active photographic program ? It would be fun to find a centruy old
image of the Crab Nebula. I suspect it may have been done to measure
acceleration of the wisps in the nebula but a quick check on ADS didn't
find any long timebase secular change/expansion papers.

I might suggest that the 20" telescope that could have been used in
1892 would have been the Grubb-built reflector owned by Dr. Isaac
Roberts at his Starfield Observatory in Sussex. A picture of it is
found in this bio:

http://brynjones.members.beeb.net/wa..._iroberts.html

Roberts indeed had an active photographic program at that time.

Seems he is a very likely candidate. Right time and able to get the
brighter Messier objects in pretty good shape. His shot of the veil is
very good for that period - early emulsions didn't like red light much.

I was really excited by the 20" Grubb scope too. I am still searching
for the twin of a UK 18" Newtonian Grubb scope (once owned by the racing
car designer G T Smith-Clarke and then by Jodrell Bank) with a skeletal
frame and an optional Naysmith focus (Naysmith optics long since lost).

October 1887 photograph of the Andromeda "nebula" (as galaxies were
then known) preserved the first permanent image of its spiral shape,
hard to detect in typical narrow-field observatory refractors. That
picture is shown in the biography whose URL is given above.

Time to find a copy of "A Selection of Photographs of Stars,
Star-Cluster and Nebulae, Vols 1+2 (1899). Inter-library loans will love
trying to find that!

In addition to many excellent early photographic images of very famous
objects known to all astronomers at the time -- such as M42, M31, M33,
and diverse nebulae -- showing the superb resolution and accuracy of
his telescope, Roberts also captured one of the finest early images of
the Horsehead nebula in 1900 (shown in the article referenced above.)

Alas no shot of M1 online. Well out of copyright though so it should not
be a problem to put it online when and if it is found.

Dr. David Malin touches on this Roberts image -- "In the Shadow of the
Horsehead Nebula" -- in an article he wrote for Sky and Telescope,
September 1987 (p. 253-57). I might add that I've discussed Roberts
with him, and to quote Malin, "I think you are a bit harsh on Roberts.
Certainly he made wild remarks about what he was photographing but he
[was] not unique in that."

(You see, I am a Californian, and a Lick Observatory volunteer. Lick
astronomers, including the second director, James Keeler, had not a
very high opinion of Roberts, as he often overstepped his bounds as an
enthusiastic amateur astronomer and made somewhat preposterous
pronouncements on cosmology that no professional astronomer of the
time could support.)

I should add that in addition to the controversy over Roberts' ideas
about cosmology and astrophysics, he was severely criticized by Edward
E. Barnard. Roberts' photos were done with exposures that were one
half to one fourth as long as ones that were made typically by Barnard
or Wolf; no wonder Roberts secured pictures that had little trace of
the nebulosity that his professional contemporaries were able to
record! The pictures he published, however, were well-guided and
cleanly reproduced.

I no longer have convenient access to the Roberts Atlas prepared by
his widow but it should be a matter of no great difficulty to see if
the Crab nebula is on one of the plates included therein.

Thanks for this detailed info. Most enlightening. I will seek out a copy
of the book although it may take a while before I can get to a suitable
llibrary.

Roberts was by no means a shrinking violet, he made every effort to
publish his remarkable images in both the popular scientific press --
especially "Knowledge" -- and professional organs such as "The
Astrophysical Journal"; one could look for late 19th century photos of
the Crab to see if he had contributed to discussions of the object.

Nature is also worth a try. Although I am not sure offhand when they
started reproducing photographs in the magazine. My local libraries do
not go that far back.

Regards,
Martin Brown

In article ,
Martin Brown writes:
It would be fun to find a centruy old
image of the Crab Nebula. I suspect it may have been done to measure
acceleration of the wisps in the nebula but a quick check on ADS didn't
find any long timebase secular change/expansion papers.

I had better luck. Nugent (1998 PASP 110, 831) gives proper motions
over a 50-year baseline. References in his paper might lead to the
earlier images. An earlier paper on the filament proper motions is
by Trimble (1968 AJ 73, 535); she used Mt. Wilson and Palomar plates
for her study.

--
Steve Willner Phone 617-495-7123
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
(Please email your reply if you want to be sure I see it; include a
valid Reply-To address to receive an acknowledgement. Commercial
email may be sent to your ISP.)

On Thu, 05 Jan 2006 10:32:43 +0000, Martin Brown
wrote:
Time to find a copy of "A Selection of Photographs of Stars,
Star-Cluster and Nebulae, Vols 1+2 (1899). Inter-library loans will love
trying to find that!

When I was doing all my research on late nineteenth-century
photographs of the Horsehead, using the archives at Lick Observatory
on Mt. Hamilton and in the science library at UC/Santa Cruz in
1989-90, everything possible was available on the shelves: the
entirety of the early Lick Observatory archives back to the beginning.
This includes publications by the B.A.A., The Sidereal Messenger,
Knowledge, etc.; now many of those old things are in storage, I'm
told. But star charts, catalogues, etc., are likely to have been
retained in the circulating collections. However, I would suspect not
too many professional astronomers or grad students want to leaf thru
an 1899 issue of "Knowledge" these days!

I think that Roberts' major *scientific* publications during his
lifetime, and the Klumpke-Roberts derivative posthumous works, are
probably available. So, check the UC/Santa Cruz science library!

I know this is of no use whatsoever, but in my examination of articles
in the popular and scientific press for every possible gleaning about
nebula photography, post-1883, I am pretty certain that I can recall
seeing a *very* early M-1 photo, probably a rotogravure print. I
don't think Barnard was responsible, so it might have been done by
Keeler, by Roberts, or in Europe (Wolf?...)

Best of luck,
AstroApp

This has been a very interesting discussion.
Someone asked
I wonder if William Parsons had unusual acuity, or unusual sensitivity to
red light.

probably not, but most speculum mirrors give a slight red tinge, which
might increase contrast in reddish parts of the image.

I have quite a few papers on early astrophotography & it is amazing that
the 'first M1' is so obscure. All I could find is:

Hoffleit, Dorritt. Some Firsts in Astronomical Photography. Cambridge:
Harvard College Observatory, 1950. 39pp.
p39, "1892. First photograph of the Crab nebula, by Roberts; noted
difference from early drawings".

She also includes a note from George Bond, who calls his camera the
'actinic apparatus'.... what a great name. This can apparently be found
(on ADS) in MNRAS v17 (1857) p230.

Roberts was probably the first, but within a few years Keeler with the
Crossley telescope had, I'm sure, taken a much better image.

PS Lick's library is still on the shelves at UCSC and seems to be intact.
It is a fantastic 19th century astronomy library.
--
=============================================
Peter Abrahams telscope.at.europa.dot.com
The history of the telescope and the binocular:
http://home.europa.com/~telscope/binotele.htm

Peter Abrahams wrote:
This has been a very interesting discussion.
Someone asked

I wonder if William Parsons had unusual acuity, or unusual sensitivity to
red light.

probably not, but most speculum mirrors give a slight red tinge, which
might increase contrast in reddish parts of the image.

It would certainly improve transmission of the red light a bit and maybe
hide some of the bluish continuum synchrotron emission.

I have quite a few papers on early astrophotography & it is amazing that
the 'first M1' is so obscure. All I could find is:

Hoffleit, Dorritt. Some Firsts in Astronomical Photography. Cambridge:
Harvard College Observatory, 1950. 39pp.
p39, "1892. First photograph of the Crab nebula, by Roberts; noted
difference from early drawings".

Thanks for this I will add it to my list. I am hoping that some of these
might reside in the Durham University astronomy department library. That
isn't too far away.

She also includes a note from George Bond, who calls his camera the
'actinic apparatus'.... what a great name. This can apparently be found
(on ADS) in MNRAS v17 (1857) p230.

Roberts was probably the first, but within a few years Keeler with the
Crossley telescope had, I'm sure, taken a much better image.

PS Lick's library is still on the shelves at UCSC and seems to be intact.
It is a fantastic 19th century astronomy library.

Many of the older European observatories have very good (private)
libraries, but the oldest and rarer books are now stored under
controlled conditions and not on the open shelves. A sad reflection of
the times.

Regards,
Martin Brown

Steve Willner wrote:

In article ,
Martin Brown writes:

It would be fun to find a centruy old
image of the Crab Nebula. I suspect it may have been done

I had better luck. Nugent (1998 PASP 110, 831) gives proper motions
over a 50-year baseline. References in his paper might lead to the
earlier images. An earlier paper on the filament proper motions is
by Trimble (1968 AJ 73, 535); she used Mt. Wilson and Palomar plates
for her study.

Thanks for both these.

Regards,
Martin