Today is a big day for me, because I saw the marvels of astronomy in the 18th and 19th century first hand. These included the daguerrotypes to glass plates on which several fascinating events like the sighting of Haley's comet in 1910 were recorded and several unknown wonders of the sky uncovered. These glass plates essentially are negative images of the sky, which were recorded and then analysed.
I saw one of the plates up and close which forms the basis of the Henry-Draper (HD) star catalog, his original notebook where he classified each object on the plate, numbered them and pinned down the stellar type.
It gives me goosebumps to imagine how painstakingly those people worked, what would have been their level of enthusiasm when they gave it all to fulfill one motive: satisfaction of their curiosity. It is ever more fascinating to think there are many
legends and names related to them that we know, but there are many more whom no one ever knew. But they still made their contribution, and we are indebted to them, forever.
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