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Kepler, German astronomer, develops the scientific principles of the camera obscura and applies magic shadows to the stars of the heavens—Scheiner and D’Aguilon improve image devices.

Johannes Kepler, the great astronomer, advanced the art-science of magic shadows by developing the theory of the projection of images as well as the scientific use of multiple lenses and the camera obscura or “dark chamber”. Da Vinci told how the camera could be used; Porta tried it out for entertainment on a considerable scale but there still was need for penetrating attention from a scientist. That Kepler supplied.

Kepler was a precocious child though he suffered from poor health. He had no special interest or inclination towards astronomy until in 1594, at the age of 23, he found himself required to teach a class in that subject. Soon he became an expert and before his death announced the Kepler laws explaining the planetary system. In 1600 Kepler became assistant to Tycho Brahe (1546–1601), the greatest practical astronomer to that date but one who rejected the Copernican theory that the earth and planets revolve around the sun, a theory which was firmly proved by Kepler. Brahe lost the tip of his nose in a duel, so he wore a gold one, carrying with him cement with which to stick on the tip whenever it fell off.

A few years after becoming astronomer to the Emperor, Kepler published, in 1604, Ad Vitellionem Paralipomena—“Supplement to Witelo”; Witelo, a Pole called Thuringopolonus, wrote a treatise on optics about 1270. He was a contemporary of Roger Bacon. Kepler used da Vinci’s parallel of the eye and the room camera and set the latter’s principles on a firm scientific basis.

Kepler wrote, “This art, according to my knowledge, was first handed down by Giovanni Battista Porta and was one of the chief parts of his Natural Magic.” (But, as the reader recalls, Porta was not the first to know about the camera obscura and was not its inventor but only a popularizer.) “But content with a practical experience,” Kepler continued, “Porta did not add a scientific demonstration. Yet only by the use of this device can astronomers study the image of the solar eclipse.”

Kepler then described the camera obscura or “dark chamber,” adding an interesting observation. He proposed that the spectator should keep out of the daylight for fifteen minutes or a half hour before he planned to use the camera so that he could get his eyes accustomed to the darkness in order to observe the images more clearly. Kepler then instructed that the objects to be represented should be placed in bright light, either of the sun or lamps. He also noted that the objects were reversed, and remarked that the images appeared in the colors of the objects. Kepler also explained that a diaphragm was needed to control the amount of light admitted to the camera, and that best results were obtained when the sun was near the horizon.

A detailed and rather technical explanation of how the camera system works was given by Kepler. Towards the end of the description he wrote an important instruction: “All the walls of the camera except the one used as the screen for the images should be black.” This was necessary to prevent reflection and dulling of the brilliance of the images on the white wall or screen. Everyone knows how the insides of a modern camera are black for the very same purpose. Kepler also noted that the “camera” must be tightly sealed. He was the first to refer to the device under the simple name of “camera” which in time was adopted universally.

Kepler also was the first to give a sound theory of vision. (Recall the shot-from-eye or shot-from-object schools of the ancients.) Kepler stated, “Seeing amounts to feeling the stimulus of the retina which is painted with colored rays of the visible world. The picture must then be transmitted to the brain by a mental current and delivered at the seat of the visual faculty.” That is a rather good definition even by modern standards. Kepler, however, was not 100 per cent correct. He held that light had an infinite velocity. To Kepler goes the credit for being the first correctly to explain after-images, a knowledge of which is so vital to understanding how the illusion of motion is created.

Kepler started to use a telescope about 1609 and through its use he was able to develop improved ideas for the room camera by the time he published his Dioptrice, “Concerning Lenses,” a foundation of modern optics, in 1611. In that work the basis was first established for what was later to be long-range or “telescope” photography which makes possible many important effects in the modern motion picture.

The telescope, the most highly developed lens system and the reverse of a projection arrangement, was invented in Holland in the early part of the 17th century. Galileo, who with Kepler did much to popularize the telescope, admitted that he had seen one made by a Dutchman before he fashioned his own.

The name “telescope” was coined by Damiscian of the Italian scientific “Academy of the Lynxes,” to which Porta also had belonged. The invention of the telescope is commonly credited to “the spectacle maker of Middleburgh,” usually identified as Hans Lippershey. The compound microscope, effects of which had been indicated by Roger Bacon, evidently also was invented a few years prior to the telescope—by Zachary Janssen, in Holland. But it was first described in Italy. Early telescopes generally followed the model developed by Galileo, while by the middle of the 17th century the superiority of Kepler’s method was recognized and larger and more powerful telescopes were possible. In recent times the telescope has reverted to a mirror—or Burning Glass—reflecting system instead of the standard style refracting telescope.

To a contemporary of Kepler goes the acclaim for being the first to use the camera obscura apart from a room; in other words, in a portable form. Thus was the first portable camera developed more than two hundred years before photography was invented. The man was Scheiner, another astronomer.

Christopher Scheiner, a German Jesuit, born about 1575 in Swabia, did much work in astronomy and perfected various ingenious optical instruments. Some say he was the first to use the camera projection device for throwing the sun’s image on a screen in order to study its details. This replaced a system which used colored glasses. Kepler, prior to this, suggested the method but it is generally acknowledged that Scheiner made the first application. In 1610 Scheiner invented his Pantograph or optical copying instrument. In March, 1611, he observed sun spots. His superiors were afraid that he and they would be exposed to ridicule if he were to publish such a discovery under his own name—it was so opposed to the contemporary scientific as well as traditional scientific belief. And so his findings were published in 1612 by a friend, under an assumed name.

Scheiner was a believer in the need for accuracy in experiments to form a firm basis for future development of theory. He studied the eye and believed that the retina was the seat of vision. By the year 1616 he had so attracted attention of scientists that the Archduke Maximilian invited him to Innsbruck. Scheiner taught mathematics and Hebrew and continued his work in optics. He was the author of Rosa Ursina,—1626–30, the standard work on the sun for generations. In 1623 he was a professor of mathematics at the Roman College, where Kircher fell under his personal influence. The last years of Scheiner’s life were spent at Neisse in Silesia, where he died in 1650.

Scheiner was influenced by François d’Aguilon, the first of several Jesuits who made an important contribution to what was to be the modern motion picture. D’Aguilon advanced the knowledge of optics throughout Europe.

D’Aguilon was born in Brussels in 1566 and after entering the Jesuits in 1586 and being educated he became a professor of philosophy at the famous college in Douai, France. Later he was head of the College of Antwerp. D’Aguilon did not confine his interests to philosophy and speculative knowledge alone but was very much interested in certain sciences, notably optics. Moreover, he was a practicing architect and probably designed the Jesuit church at Antwerp.

His work on optics, published at Antwerp in 1613, was famous. In it is found for the first time the expression “stereographic projection,” which has survived to the present. This was known from the time of Hipparchus but had not received a permanent name until it was given by d’Aguilon, to whom must go part of the credit for the name of all devices with “stereo” somewhere in the title. D’Aguilon explored at length the subject of after-images. He correctly pointed out that the image physically disappears when the cause is removed (as a camera no longer “sees” after the shutter is closed) but there remains something impressed on the organ of sight, a certain effect on the sense of vision.

D’Aguilon was revising his book on optics when he died, in 1617. One edition was published in Antwerp in 1685 with the title Opticorum Libri Sex. Perhaps he was on the eve of the great discovery which was to be made in a few years by one of his successors. However, to him goes the credit for the name which was attached for centuries to all kinds of shadow-plays, and is still known today—Stereoscopic.

By the first quarter of the 17th century the camera was widely used for the observation of the greatest light and shadow show—the universe with sun, moon and stars. Experiments also had been made, by Porta and others, in the entertainment possibilities of the “dark chamber.” The stage was ready for the man who would bring about projection, as we know it, with the magic lantern. A long step would then be taken towards realizing man’s instinctive ambition to capture and recreate life for entertainment and instructive purposes.