Munshi Ishmail 'The equatorial camera',
from Captain Waterhouse Report on the Operations connected with the observation of the Total Eclipse of April 6, 1875
(Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, 1875)
8560.i.22   21x17 cm

Albumen print

This photograph by Munshi Ishmail shows Captain Waterhouse, Private Fox and Mr. W. H. Cox preparing the telescope and camera to photograph the corona of the sun using the wet collodion process to produce glass negatives. The inherent nature of photography lent itself to the recording and conveying of scientific information: 'Former eclipse expeditions', Waterhouse claimed, 'have always included arrangements for making eye-sketches of the corona, but however carefully these were drawn, there was always a tendency to exaggerate'.