Rutherfurd, Lewis Morris; and Richard A. Proctor

The Moon [title from front cover of portfolio].  Manchester: A Brothers, [c. 1865–73]



3 albumen photographs (each approx. 13 x 10 in.; 330 x 253 mm), mounted on card (each approx. 15 x 10¾ in.; 381 x 273 mm), unbound as issued; mounts lightly soiled.  Publisher's gilt-lettered red cloth portfolio; soiled and worn, ribbon tie not present.

Gernsheim, Incunabula 572; Linda Hall Library, The Faces of the Moon 19

A complete set of three original large-format photographs of the moon by Lewis Rutherfurd, "the greatest lunar photographer of the age" (Proctor).  Rutherfurd (1816–92) was among the first American astronomers to use photography in astrophysical research, taking his first photographs from his garden observatory in 1858.  These three photographs appeared in much reduced size in the author's popular work The Moon: her motions, aspect, scenery and physical condition (1873).  The present series, however, was meant for astronomers and is quite rare.  NUC lists a single copy with this imprint (Yale).  The portfolio cover credits this work to Rutherfurd and Richard Proctor, a nineteenth-century popularizer of astronomy, indicating that a text of some sort may have originally accompanied the photographs.

In addition to lunar photography, Rutherfurd produced outstanding photographs of the sun and planets, as well as star clusters and stars down to the fifth magnitude.  He invented instruments for his studies, including the micrometer for measuring photographs, a machine for producing improved ruled diffraction gratings, and the first telescope designed specifically for astrophotography.