On July 28, 1851, Johann Julius Friedrich Berkowski took what’s thought to be the first photograph of a solar eclipse. The Royal Prussian Observatory in what’s now Kaliningrad, Russia, had mounted a six-centimer refracting telescope to a 15.8 centimeter Fraunhofer heliometer used to measure the sun’s diameter. Berkowski made an 84 second exposure to create the daguerreotype seen above and below.
