Isaac Roberts

Isaac Roberts ( born January 27, 1829 in Groes, Denbighshire, Wales; † July 17, 1904 in Crowborough, Sussex, England) was a Welsh astronomer, a pioneer in the field of photography of astronomical nebulae. He was a member of the Liverpool Astronomical Society and the Royal Geological Society. Roberts in 1895 was honored with the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Life

Roberts was the child of William Roberts, a farmer. He was born in Groes, Denbighshire, Wales, and spent part of his childhood here, but soon he went to Liverpool. There he began his professional training in 1844 at John Johnson & Son, later, Johnson & Robinson, an engineering firm for mechanics. In 1847 he became a partner. Besides his work, he attended night school. After the death of Peter Robinson 1855 Roberts was manager of the company. With the death of the other partner, John Johnson, Roberts became managing director. He was very successful and gained the reputation of being one of the best engineers in the area.

Isaac Roberts in 1875 married his first wife, Ellen Anne.

1878 earned Roberts a 7- inch refractor. The telescope he used at his home in Rocky Ferry, Birkenhead. In 1883 he began to experiment with astrophotography. He used this first portrait lenses with diameters of up to 20 cm. Motivated by the results, he ordered a 50 - inch Newtonian telescope with a silvered glass mirror and mounted the image plate directly to the prime focus, 2.50 m away from the mirror. Two years later he built an observatory for this.

With this instrument he achieved significant progress in the young field of astrophotography, he had made 200 shots of stars, the Orion Nebula, the Andromeda Galaxy and the Pleiades in the following year.

1901 married Isaac Roberts almost 30 years younger American astronomer Dorothea Klumpke, which continued his work after his death and published a 1929 an atlas of his fog photographs.

Roberts died in 1904 suddenly in Crowborough, Sussex, England at the age of 75 years. His ashes were interred in Crowborough, convicted five years later after Flaybrick Hill Cemetery, Birkenhead. Roberts was a patriot of his homeland, Wales, and related the Welsh language throughout his life. He bequeathed a considerable amount of Cardiff University, Bangor University, and the University of Liverpool. Stands on his grave inscription:

On the granite monument of his tomb (in addition to Egyptian motifs ) of the Andromeda Nebula and the California nebula NGC 1499 are engraved, which he had both photographed.

Services

Roberts designed automatic tracking his telescope to compensate for the Earth's rotation and to allow longer exposure times. This made it possible to hold objects whose observation has not been possible because of their low luminosity until then. His photographs have also contributed to the elucidation of the structure of nebulae in particular the inclusion of the Andromeda nebula of December 29, 1888. Besides his work on stars, star clusters and nebulae he developed a machine, which he called Stellar Pantograver with which the engraving was possible of star positions in copper plates.

A selection of images from Robert's work " A Selection of Photographs of Stars, Star - clusters and Nebulae " gives the following gallery again:

Triangulum Galaxy

Veil Nebula in the constellation Cygnus