The Transit of Venus... via the Victorian Magic Lantern!

[TakMan]

I did a quick search for 'Magic Lantern' on here before posting. All that returned was a piece of camera software that I was not aware of!

So in case you haven't heard of a 'Magic Lantern' projection device, just take a second and try and take your mind back in time... putting yourself into the shoes of those rather clever and inventive Victorians...
To a time way before television and the early cinema... in fact to the heyday of the Music Hall, the pioneers of photography and the early moving image.

Although the Magic Lantern projector had existed since the 17th Century, it really came to the fore when the Victorians took it under their inventive wings!

Traditional lantern slides are hand painted onto glass and mounted into rectangular mahogany frames. Some have multiple pieces of glass that can be moved by the projectionist, or his assistant (called slipping slides) and some incorporate gearing and levers to manipulate several pieces of glass laid over each other - the classic kaleidoscope being a good example.

By using more than one lens in the lantern (up to three - a ‘Triunal’), multiple slides can be used with simple moving pieces of glass (say a black painted boat with figures on one slide or piece of glass that appear to be ‘sailing’ across another piece of glass painted to be a colourful Thames river scene with the famous London cityscape). By adding additional slides, fades and dissolves utilising the other lenses - the projectionist can turn a sunny day into a storm, capsize the boat, or turn day to night, with lights illuminating the distant houses and the stars appearing.

In fact all sorts of clever visual effects and movements could be created (accompanied with sound effects) - an astonoshing spectacle could be achieved to entertain and also educate the illiterate masses.

Although it can appear quite tame by today’s standards, think how you felt when you first saw the opening of the original Star Wars, or the ‘liquid’ Terminator forming out of that chequered floor, or Avitar, or your first 3D movie. To folks 130+ years ago, when life was hard and sort, disease and death never far away... such illusions and forms of ghostly movement would have been like magic... or witchcraft.

Quite a business built up around mass producing 'hand pained' slides, but also incorporated early photography to increase production further.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_lantern
 

Some of the most famous pieces of Lantern projectionism is ‘Phantasmagoria‘, see:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantasmagoria

One of my oldest friends and his parents have a fantastic collection of such slides, lanterns and other optical items from this period. Over the years I've had the chance to watch and photograph them in action.

More than a year ago he gave me the opportunity to photography a large selection of astronomy related slides before selling them on - I'm still in the process of investigating and researching them and trying to come up with a logical presentation for my local astro club. I'd like to do it in the style of a 'Lantern Show', but using PowerPoint!

Many of the images such as these were reproductions taken from the expensive books, manuscripts and scientific papers of the day (such as Lord Rosse’s observations). The intention being to open up this wealth of knowledge to a wider audience who would otherwise not have a chance to see such things...

 

Then some weeks ago he lent me a really rare lantern slide made by the celebrated lanternist/projectionist Edmund Wilkie (1857-1935). He worked at London’s Royal Polytechnic Institution between 1877-1881.

The mechanical slide (still in it’s original box and accompanied with the drawing) he designed and built out of solid brass (rather than the usual wood) shows the Transit of Venus of 1874 - or the forthcoming one in 1882). From what I can find, such slides were not intended for showing to the general public, but for the training of astronomers/observatories - I can only presume to give them some sort of idea as to what to expect on the actual day of the real thing...

And that's the interesting bit of this slide, how Edmund Wilkie incorporated the famous ‘black drop effect’ into it for both the entry and exit of the planet onto the face of the sun. This optical phenomena was something many of us witnessed a few years ago with the Transit of a Mercury. Opening up the slide uncovered a clever mechanism of gears and springs that still worked quite happily despite being over 130 years old! I have some more images that I will upload once I get the camera battery charged!

Hope you found this of interest anyway...?

Click below for the 1 minute video showing the Transit of Venus across the face of the sun as I turn the handle shown in the picture above!

Damian

[bingevader]

I'd heard of them, but never seen the mechanism for movement.

The Transit of Venus slide is just splendid.

Thanks

[SIDO]

Great stuff, I have always loved the optical machinery of the past...

[Stub Mandrel]

Wow!