First light

the long version

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. In the past, original photographs appeared in illustrated non-specialist publications on astronomy. Nowadays the information that astronomers gather for their research is translated into spectacular and almost painterly images that reach us via newspapers, magazines, television and the Internet. The exhibition will comprise a first-time combination of unique historical astronomy photographs, from Dutch collections, and present-day images made by famous telescopes and space probes such as ESO, Hubble and Cassini.