170 years before Artemis II: Hermann Krone's early photographs of the moon in TUD's historical collections

April 7, 2026 marked a milestone in the history of space travel. For the first time, humans observed the far side of the moon, which until then had only been documented by unmanned spacecraft. The four crew members of the Orion space capsule orbited the Earth's satellite as part of NASA's first manned moon mission since the 1970s. While still on their journey, they sent spectacular photographs back to Earth, which took their place amongst the highlights of almost 200 years of astrophotography. The historical collections of TU Dresden hold some of the earliest examples of this special discipline. 

Hermann Krone (1827-1916) was one of the earliest proponents of using photography in astronomy. As early as the 1840s, he successfully documented a shooting star on a daguerreotype, which has since been lost to history. Still, he was one of the very first to achieve such a feat: the combination of galactic darkness and weak light sources continues to pose enormous challenges for photography until today. As a pioneer of scientific photography, Krone worked in Dresden from around 1850, where he also taught courses on astrophotography at what later became TUD Dresden University of Technology. His greatest successes include photographs of the transit of Venus in 1874, which he documented as part of an expedition from the Auckland Islands. In addition to the sun and the phenomena associated with it, he also focused on the moon and the planets of the solar system.

© TU Dresden, Hermann-Krone-Sammlung

The Hermann Krone Collection at TU Dresden holds the majority of Krone's surviving astrophotographs. Among the earliest are his photographs of the partial solar eclipse, which could be seen from Dresden in 1859. In the 1880s, Krone documented the orbits of the moon and planets on long-exposure glass plates. Handwritten explanations on the negatives attest to the astronomical expertise of the photographer, who also published on the subject, as well as the scientific nature of the images:

"Photographic representation of the apparent orbits (in daily earth rotation) of Jupiter and the moon to determine the reduction of actinicity against the horizon. Photographs taken at noted time intervals. The effect of the optical deviation of the lens towards the edge is visible. [...]"
(Hermann Krone, inscription on the glass negative KAD N 0167, TU Dresden, Hermann Krone Collection)

Krone was also interested in the surface of the moon: a plate from the influential "Photographic Moon Atlas" by his friend Ladislaus Weinek found its way into the "Historical Teaching Museum for Photography", a unique series of didactic chart which is also held at TU Dresden. One of his own photographs of the moon's surface has been preserved in the collections of the Deutsches Museum in Munich.

© TU Dresden, Hermann-Krone-Sammlung