Two Woodburytype photographs, one entitled 'Full Moon Exhibiting the Bright Streaks Radiating from Tycho etc.', and he other 'Glass Globe Cracked by Internal Pressure Illustrating the Cause of the Bright Streaks Radiating from Tycho etc.', taken by Warren De La Rue [1815-1889], in about 1855. This is an illustration from a book published in 1874 entitled 'The Moon, Considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite' by Scottish engineer James Nasmyth [1808-1890] and James Carpenter [1840-1899], an astronomer at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich.The book was based on their observations of the moon through drawings, photographs and models. This photograph by De La Rue is of the actual Moon - as opposed to the detailed models made and then photographed by Nasmyth to illustrate its surface. The glass globe is used as a careful visual comparison of the arrangement of cracks from the crater Tycho. De La Rue was a London book-binder and paper manufacturer who had been inspired by the daguerreotypes of the Moon made by J. A. Whipple [1822-1891] and W. C. Bond [1825-1865] in 1851 . The Woodburytype was a photomechanical process patented in 1864 by Walter Bentley Woodbury [1834-1885]. It produced high quality images used for book illustration and remained popular until about 1900.
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