Solar Microscopy precursors of film and movie





In the early 18th century, Polish-German-Dutch physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit reportedly constructed a solar microscope, a combination of a compound microscope and a camera obscura projection. The instrument relied on bright sunlight to project a clear and magnified image of transparent objects. It is believed that Fahrenheit's invention may have been seen by German physician Johann Nathanael Lieberkühn, who later introduced it in England, where optician John Cuff made improvements to the design by adding a stationary optical tube and an adjustable mirror.


In 1774, English instrument maker Benjamin Martin introduced his "Opake Solar Microscope" for the enlarged projection of opaque objects. He claimed that this microscope not only magnified the natural appearance or size of objects of every sort, but also threw such a quantity of solar rays upon them, making all their colors appear vastly more vivid and strong than to the naked eye. With its ability to expand and distinguish the parts of an object, the Opake Microscope could not only be viewed with the utmost pleasure but also drawn with the greatest ease by any skilled artist.



The solar microscope was employed in experiments with photosensitive silver nitrate by Thomas Wedgwood in collaboration with Humphry Davy, ultimately leading to the first, albeit impermanent, photographic enlargements. Their discoveries, considered to be the earliest deliberate and successful form of photography, were published in June 1802 by Davy in the first issue of the Journals of the Royal Institution of Great Britain. The solar microscope, therefore, played a significant role in the development of early photography and film.

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