Kraters op de maan before 1899

This is an image of the Moon’s surface with lunar craters, made by Loewy et Puiseux. The processes of photography and printing were used to render what was seen through a telescope. The result, mounted into an atlas, makes something immensely remote into a reproducible image. The stark black and white emphasizes the undulating topography of the lunar surface, with its varied textures ranging from smooth plains to rugged crater rims. The craters themselves, like three-dimensional cavities, invite us to imagine the immense force of cosmic collisions. Photography itself involves skilled techniques in capturing, developing, and printing images, a laborious process in the pre-digital age. The atlas containing this image, would have been circulated among scientific communities, contributing to a shared understanding of the cosmos. By considering the materials and processes involved, we recognize that even an image of something as abstract as the surface of the moon is deeply tied to human craft, knowledge, and collective endeavor.