Photos of Orion taken with a Cooke telescope from Newcastle in 1890

In 1890 Lawrence Richardson of Newcastle on Tyne using a 4.5 inch Thomas Cooke & Sons telescope undertook some research into astronomical photography using his telescope which was an achromatic.  He was not that hopeful of getting really sharp images, the Cooke & Sons photo visual telescope would not be available until he mid 1890s. 

Richardson found that he could take a photograph of Orion which would show hundreds of stars and which would take around about an hour. He went on to say that he thought that astrophotography was a very good field for amateur astronomers to work in and obtain good results.

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