First Light - Photography & Astronomy
Saskia Asser
Architectura & Natura Press, January 2010

Paperback | 5-1/2 x 7-1/2 inches | 542 pages | 150 illustrations | Dutch/English | ISBN: 978-9076863931 | $39.50

Publisher Description:
Since the late 19th century, astronomers have been exploring the limits of human perception by way of photography. Those limits were surpassed once and for all with the arrival of space travel and the satellite. In photographs, the seemingly infinite size of the universe is reduced to human proportions, yet it remains an elusive idea. Partly for that reason astronomy has had a long history of popularizing research. Exhibition catalogue comprising of first/time combinations of unique historical astronomy photographers from Dutch collections, and present-day images made by famous telescopes and space probes such as ESO, Hubble and Cassini.dDAB Commentary: Recently reviewing two books on life beyond Earth ? Moon: Architectural Guide and Space Settlements ? led me to flip through First Light: Photography & Astronoy, a book I found irresistible when I spotted it at the bookstore of Architectura & Natura in Amsterdam last year. The book is the catalog to a 2010 exhibition of the same name at Huis Marseille, a photography museum also in Amsterdam. Although the book is long, the dual-language nature of the book means most of the pages are text rather than images. The latter are what drew to the book, though flipp...