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Photoelectric Photometry — The First Fifty Years

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

J.B. Hearnshaw
J.B. Hearnshaw*
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

Abstract

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This historical review covers the first fifty years of the electrical measurement of starlight, which saw its beginnings in August 1892 when William Monck used a Minchin photovoltaic cell on his refractor in Dublin. The work of Stebbins using photoconductive cells from 1907 and of Guthnick, Stebbins and others using photoelectric cells from 1912 is also discussed. The advances brought about by thermionic amplification and the red-sensitive Cs-O-Ag photocathode in the early 1930s by respectively Whitford and Hall enabled new astrophysical problems to be tackled. Although many observers attempted photoelectric photometry, relatively few were successful during the 1920s and ‘30s. It was not until the introduction of the 1P21 photomultiplier tube that astronomers had a reliable and sensitive detector for photometric observations.

Type
The History of Stellar Photometry
Information
International Astronomical Union Colloquium , Volume 136: Stellar Photometry – Current Techniques and Future Developments , 1993 , pp. 13 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © C.J. Butler and I. Elliottt 1993

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