On December 22, 1891, Max Wolf, a pioneering astrophotographer, discovered the first of two hundred and forty eight asteroids he would spot and name in his long and illustrious career. He named it 323 Brucia for Catherine Wolfe Bruce, his patroness and the woman who put up the funds for the telescope and instruments Wolf used to find and photograph these mini-planetoids. And while Wolf was a record holder in his lifetime for his large number of asteroid discoveries, his legacy extends far beyond just spotting space rocks.
Wolf, in his capacity as the supervisor of the new astrophysics observatory at the University of Heidelberg, designed a new telescope which could accommodate the attachment of a camera apparatus. The idea of combing a camera and a telescope was nothing new, but Wolf’s revelation that cameras could see objects unnoticeable by the naked eye proved revolutionary. After setting up the camera to take photographs of asteroids, Wolf noticed that on longer exposures, when the photographic film was left exposed for more than just the click of a shutter, things showed up that he hadn’t noticed while lining up the shot. With the shutter open and the film exposed, there was more time for the limited photons from these far away and dim celestial bodies to imprint on the paper.
The things Wolf found in his pictures would lay the foundation for astrophotography and prove to be huge contributions to our understanding of the universe around us. In addition to the more the two hundred asteroids he documented, Wolf found and recorded over one thousand stars that had previously gone unseen. This includes Wolf 359, which is among the closest stars to our solar system. He also uncovered the mystery of dark nebulae, which appeared to be areas with no stars, but which he proved to be to clouds of opaque dust that would blot out the light of stars behind it. He also found a number of supernovae, a task that requires almost as much luck as skill as these transient explosions are often only visible for a short time. Wolf’s star charts and logbooks are still used as guides for astrophysicists studying the night sky, and his contribution to the field has proven immeasurable even as technology improves.