A Journey Into Astronomy

Colour photo of a metal transit including a dial installed on one of the pillars directing a small telescope

Before 1400

The ancient Egyptians use the transit for the first time about 4,000 years ago.

Astronomers

Before 1400

The astrolab and octant are the predecessors of the sextant.

Instruments

Before 1400

For thousands of years, native people use the stars to navigate and to monitor the passage of time. Stars are also the inspiration for native legends, which are passed down from generation to generation.

Observatories

Before 1400

The Assyrians are likely the first to use lenses to magnify objects, probably around 1,500 BC.

Instruments

Reproduction of a painting of the crucifixion of Christ surrounded by two thieves, before a crowd of onlookers

1430

Flemish painter Jan van Eyck makes the first known drawing of the Moon in his painting entitled "The crucifixion".

Evolution of images

1497

By exploring Newfoundland, John Cabot becomes the first known European to set foot on Canadian soil. Like all explorers of his time, he navigates using the stars.

Observatories

Sketch in black on yellowed paper of the right side of the moon with handwritten text and ink stains

1504

Leonardo da Vinci draws this sketch of the Moon.

Evolution of images

1535

Jacques Cartier explores the continental interior. He finds the mouth of the Saint-Lawrence during the Perseid meteor shower.

Observatories

1540

Leonard Digges constructs the first telescope using lenses.

Instruments

1603

The roots of astronomy take hold in Canada with the arrival of Samuel de Champlain, the first governor of New France.

Observatories

Oil portrait of a man with long hair and a goatee dressed in black and wearing a white collar, in front of a red curtain

Sketch in black against a white background representing a quarter moon with small lines providing geographic details

1609

British astronomer Thomas Harriot uses a refracting telescope to make the first sketch of the Moon many months before Galileo performs the same feat.

Evolution of images

1610

In Italy, Galileo publishes "The Starry Messenger" and makes revolutionary astronomical observations using a telescope he built himself.

Instruments

Painted portrait of a man with a beard wearing a white collar and black robes, seated in an armchair.

1618

Jesuits record the first astronomical observations made in Canada.

Observatories

1634

Astronomy becomes an official task assigned to the Engineer-in-Chief and Land Surveyor for the New France colony in Quebec.

Observatories

1646

Jean Bourdon is the first Canadian to own a telescope.

Observatories

1654

The first known drawing of the Orion nebula, drawn by Giovanni Batista Hodierna.

Evolution of images

Drawing in white against a black background including two lines of text, a circle at the centre and numerous white dots representing stars

1667

Louis XIV commands all roads in the capital of Paris to be lit at night in order to combat thefts and other crimes.

Astronomers

1668

Isaac Newton builds his telescope.

Instruments

Oil portrait of a man with long, curly brown hair wearing a jabot and wine-red jacket, seated in a brown armchair.

1669

Rasmus Bartholin publishes the first article on the splitting of light rays by Icelandic spar.

Instruments

1672

In France, Laurent Cassegrain invents a new type of reflecting telescope.

Instruments

Colour photo of a black metal sextant with a curved, graduated section of one sixth of a circle, a scope and a lens

1730~

The modern version of the sextant is independently invented by John Hadley in England and Thomas Godfrey in the United States.

Instruments

1750~

Evidence suggests that an astronomical observatory is installed at the College of Quebec.

Observatories

Title page of a book with text in French and an engraving at the centre of the page

1751

An engraving showing the image of sky observers outdoors with an astronomical instrument at the Fortress of Louisbourg in Nova Scotia. It is likely that a temporary observatory existed for a short time in the fortress.

Observatories

1765

The first North American observatory that existed with historical certainty is constructed at Castle Frederick, an estate founded by Joseph DesBarres at Falmouth, Nova Scotia

Observatories

Circular grid map containing a pencil sketch representing a nebula

1771

Charles Messier makes this drawing of the Orion nebula.

Evolution of images

1775

The first map of the Moon with longitudes and latitudes. German astronomer Tobias Mayer drew the base map in the 1850's, but the longitudes and latitudes were added in 1775, after his death.

Evolution of images

Drawing of various shades of grey representing a grid map with circular zones and shades areas

1792

William Murdoch invents the natural gas lamp and cities in Britain begin to light their streets using natural gas.

Astronomers

1811

French astronomer Dominique François Jean Arago invents the polariscope.

Instruments

Pencil portrait of a man with shoulder-length hair looking to the left and wearing a suit and white shirt

1816

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce succeeds in making the first photograph on paper.

Instruments

1822

French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce makes the first permanent photograph using a sheet of polished tin coated with bitumen.

Instruments

Black and white portrait of a man with hair tumbling on the forehead, looking in the distance and wearing a jacket with a stand-up collar and shirt fastened high under the chin

1836

British astronomer John Frederick William Herschel invents the photometer.

Instruments

1842

French optician Noël Marie Paymal Lerebours photographs the Sun for the first time.

Instruments

Daguerreotype representing a white sphere with a grey-spotted contour against a black background

Circular black and white daguerreotype of the left side of the moon with circles on the lunar surface

1845

American physician and chemist John William Draper takes this daguerreotype of the Moon.

Evolution of images

1846

Dr. Charles Smallwood establishes an observatory at Saint-Martin on Quebec’s Île Jésus (now “Laval”).

Observatories

1849

Dr. James Toldervy of Fredericton, New Brunswick, creates an observatory in his garden near the Saint John River.

Observatories

1850

Lord Rosse makes this drawing of the Orion nebula.

Evolution of images

Sketch of a nebula represented by undulating white lines against a black background

1850

American astronomer William Cranch Bond and photographer John Adams Whipple produce the first photograph of a star when they take this daguerreotype of Vega.

Instruments

1850

The Quebec City Observatory is established on the Plains of Abraham.

Observatories

Black and white daguerreotype of the right side of the moon with spheres and black spots on its surface

1851

American photographer John Adams Whipple takes this daguerreotype of the Moon.

Evolution of images

1854

William Frederick King is born.

Astronomers

1856

The Kingston Observatory is established in London, Ontario.

Observatories

1859

German chemist Robert Wilhelm Bunsen and German physicist Gustav Robert Kirchhoff invent the first spectroscope.

Instruments

Black and white portrait of a man with a long frizzy beard looking to his right.

1861

Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell creates the first colour photograph using filters made of coloured glass plates.

Instruments

1862

The King College Observatory is established in Windsor, Nova Scotia.

Observatories

Three square red, green and blue filters lit by three projectors behind them. The same shape appears on the three filters.

1863

The McGill University Observatory is established in Montreal, Quebec.

Observatories

1865

John Stanley Plaskett is born.

Astronomers

Black and white photo of a man with a large mustache, wearing a suit and tie and looking to his right

1865

Clarence Augustus Chant is born.

Astronomers

1865

British astronomer and chemist Warren De La Rue takes this photograph of the Moon. De La Rue becomes the first person to print photos.

Evolution of images

Black and white photo of the right side of the moon with black and white spots on its surface

Black and white photo of the left side of a half-moon revealing craters and dark spots

1870

American lawyer and astronomer Lewis Morris Rutherfurd takes the first pictures of the Moon that are sensitive to violet light. They reveal, for the first time, many details that are hard to see with the naked eye.

Evolution of images

1873

The Charles Blackman Observatory is established in Montreal, Quebec.

Observatories

1879

American inventor George Eastman (who would go on to found the Eastman-Kodak company in 1892) builds a machine for coating photographic plates with emulsion, which allows for the mass production of photographs.

Instruments

1879

The Woodstock College Observatory is established in Hamilton, Ontario.

Observatories

1879

Edison makes a major improvement on the electric light bulb.

Observatories

1880

British chemist William de Wiveleslie Abney is the first to take an infrared photograph.

Instruments

Infrared image of a human head with green, yellowish purple and bluish tinges. The person is wearing glasses easily distinguished on the face owing to their blue colour.

1882

The Victoria College Observatory is established in Cobourg, Ontario.

Observatories

1890

The Cliff Street Observatory is established in Ottawa, Ontario.

Observatories

Black and white photo of a small building made of vertically positioned wood planks with a shingle roof, an open door and three small windows

1891

American physicist Albert Abraham Michelson constructs the first interferometer.

Instruments

1896

The Paris Observatory takes this photograph of the Moon for its Photographic Atlas of the Moon, a reference book without equal until 1960.

Evolution of images

Black and white photo of a round crater with a raised, shaded centre surrounded by oval black and grey spots

Black and white photo of a man with glasses and a mustache wearing a suit and tie

1899

Carlyle Smith Beals is born.

Astronomers

1900

American optician George Willis Ritchey takes exceptional photos of the Moon. They are so good that 60 years later, Dutch-American astronomer Gerard Peter Kuiper will include three of them in his 1960 Photographic Atlas of Moon.

Evolution of images

Black and white photo of circular lines of different sizes and depths

Black and white photo of a man with black-rimmed glasses wearing a suit and tie

1904

Gerhard Herzberg is born.

Astronomers

1905

Helen Sawyer Hogg is born.

Astronomers

Black and white photo of a woman with glasses and her hair tied back

Black and white photo of a stone building with a domed roof, partially hidden by a tree.

1905

The Dominion Observatory is established in Ottawa, Ontario.

Observatories

1910

Andrew McKellar is born.

Astronomers

Black and white photo of a man with his hair combed back, wearing a suit and tie

Black and white photo of a man with glasses and short black hair wearing a suit and tie

1913

Arthur Edwin Covington is born.

Astronomers

1918

The Dominion Astrophysical Observatory is established at Saanich near Victoria, British Columbia.

Observatories

Colour photo of a white building with its dome open located at the top of a wooded hill

Black and white photo of spherical holes in a textured surface

1919

American astronomer Francis Gladheim Pease takes the first photos of the Moon that reveal details invisible to the naked eye.

Evolution of images

1920

Anne Barbara Underhill is born.

Astronomers

Black and white photo of a woman with glasses gesticulating in front of her shoulder with her right hand

Black and white photo of a man with glasses wearing a shirt, tie and sweater

1929

Sidney van den Bergh is born.

Astronomers

1932

Astronomers

Black and white photo of a man with a beard against a cloudy, yellowish and bluish background

Colour photo of a grey building with three white domes, partially hidden by tall coniferous trees.

1935

Establishment of the David Dunlap Observatory at Richmond Hill near Toronto, Ontario.

Observatories

1939

René Racine is born.

Astronomers

Photo of a man wearing a beige coat and a tie looking through the round window in a metal wall

Black and white photo of a man wearing a shirt against a background of orange, green and blue rings offset to the right

1941

John Barrie Hutchings is born.

Astronomers

1942

Jack Newton is born.

Astronomers

Low-angle photo of a man standing in front of a white telescope with a wooden dome in the background

Colour photo of a man with glasses and a beard, wearing a checkered shirt, taken in front of a black bookcase and a white wall

1943

Charles Thomas Bolton is born.

Astronomers

1943

Jean-René Roy is born.

Astronomers

Photo of a man with glasses wearing a green coat in front of a building with a silver-coloured metal dome

Colour photo of a man with short curly hair wearing a t-shirt and glasses hanging around his neck

1943

Damien Lemay is born.

Astronomers

1943

Paul Boltwood is born.

Astronomers

Photo of a man wearing glasses and a green coat grasping a metal mechanism

Black and white photo of a man with a beard and long hair wearing glasses against a starry blue and yellow background

1947

Peter Gordon Martin is born.

Astronomers

1948

Gilles Fontaine is born.

Astronomers

Black and white photo of a man with short hair, with a representation of the the pink Milky Way in the background

Black and white photo of a man wearing a suit, leaning on a lectern and speaking into a microphone with an explosion projected onscreen in the background

1948

David Howard Levy is born.

Astronomers

1950

John Richard Bond is born.

Astronomers

Black and white photo of a man wearing glasses and a suit against a star-filled black background with unearthly coloured filaments to the right

Black and white photo of a man with glasses wearing a suit with a star-filled sky in the background

1950

Scott Duncan Tremaine is born.

Astronomers

1953

Study of atmospheric turbulence using adaptive optics. Replace by: 1953: American astronomer Horace Welcome Babcock invents adaptive optics, a procedure that corrects image distortions caused by terrestrial atmospheric turbulence.

Instruments

Photo of a star of the colour and shape of a lime with a more luminous line at its centre, taken against a black background.

Black and white photo of a textured surface featuring elevations and spherical holes

1956

Gerard Peter Kuiper publishes the last great photographic lunar atlas using images recorded from Earth.

Evolution of images

1958

Jaymie Mark Matthews is born.

Astronomers

Photo of a man wearing protective clothing pushing a table carrying a rectangular metal box with several assembled components

Close-up photo of a white antenna attached to a circular building to the right of a lift with two people aboard

1959

The Algonquin Radio Observatory is established at Traverse Lake in Ontario.

Observatories

1960

The Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory is established at White Lake near Penticton, British Columbia.

Observatories

Photo of a white metal antenna pointing towards the sky located in front of a beige building partially hiding another antenna

Black and white grid photo of white spheres and spots against a textured background

1964

The first photograph of the Moon is taken by the American space probe Ranger VII.

Evolution of images

1969

Astronauts of the Apollo 11 mission take the first photos from the Moon.

Evolution of images

Black and white photo of a footprint on the lunar surface

1969

Americans Willard Boyle and George Smith design the basic structure of a CCD.

Instruments

1972

The Rothney Astrophysical Observatory is established at Priddis, southwest of Calgary, Alberta.

Observatories

Photo of the exterior of a silver-coloured metal dome and a rectangular building with a red truck parked in front

Photo of a nebula with a luminous centre, surrounded by a pink-tinged halo against a star-filled black background

1973

Orion, as seen through the telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory.

Evolution of images

1974

The first astronomical image taken by a CCD camera is this photo of the Moon.

Evolution of images

Photo of a bluish and red-tinged full moon against a black background

Photo of a white dome located at the end of a wooded lane covered with a thick layer of white snow, with a blue sky as a backdrop

1978

The Mont-Mégantic Observatory is established at Notre-Dame-des-Bois, Quebec.

Observatories

1979

The Canada-France-Hawaii Observatory is established atop Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii.

Observatories

Exterior photo of a white building with a dome. An image is projected on the dome against a backdrop of luminous concentric circles of various colours.

Photo of the exterior of a circular white building open along its facade. Inside, a white telescope points towards the sky

1987

The James-Clerk-Maxwell Observatory is established near the summit of Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii.

Observatories

1992

UNESCO dedicates a special section to the conservation of the sky and its purity in its "Declaration of the rights for future generations".

Observatories

Photo of two conical white roofs at the top of a rocky hill, hidden by small coniferous trees

1995

The University of British-Columbia Liquid-Mirror Observatory is built at Maple Ridge near Vancouver, British Columbia.

Observatories

1999

The Gemini North and South observatories are established in Hawaii and Chile.

Observatories

Photo of a silver-coloured observatory located on a hill with snow-covered mountains in the background

Image of a rectangular yellow telescope with square solar panels installed at one end on each side, deployed in orbit in a star-filled blue sky.

1999

Launch of the FUSE Space Telescope by Canada, the United States, and France.

Observatories

1999

Ontario's Sudbury Neutrino Observatory is established.

Observatories

Colour photo of of a suspended brown sphere made of triangular metal components. Men are standing at each side of the sphere.

Photo of gold-coloured metal captors pointing towards the sky, installed on the roof of an observatory with a mountainous landscape in the background.

2000

Establishment of the Cosmic Background Imager by Canada, the United-States and Chile.

Observatories

2001

The Odin Space Observatory is launched by Sweden, Canada, Finland and France.

Observatories

Image of a space observatory in orbit around Earth with panels deployed and its antenna and a green light beam pointing towards Earth.

Photo of a pink and bluish-tinged nebula against a star-filled black background

2002

The Orion nebula as seen through the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope.

Evolution of images

2002

More than 95% of stars are no longer visible from large Canadian cities. About two thirds of Canadians can no longer see the Milky Way.

Observatories

Colour photo of a rectangular telescope made of metal components positioned on a table in a closed room.

2003

Launch of MOST, the first space telescope to be entirely designed and built in Canada.

Observatories

2005

Image of lunar crater Clavius taken at the Mont-Mégantic Observatory.

Evolution of images

Black and white photo of a lunar crater featuring several small craters and, in an insert, its location boxed in a photo of the moon.

Photo of a luminous white dot surrounded by purple and orange tinged filaments, with blue and white stars against a midnight blue background

2005

The Orion nebula as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Evolution of images

2007

Creation of the Mont-Megantic International Dark Sky Reserve, a world's first

Observatories

A backlit photo of a building with a dome facing a display of orange, pink and green Northern Lights

Digital image of a group of pink, blue, red, green and yellow spots surrounded by three red dots identified by letters

2008

First direct image of a planetary system around a star.

Evolution of images

2011

Inauguration of the Atacama Large Millimeter Array by Canada, the United States, Europe, Japan and Chile.

Observatories

Photo of a group of white antennas aimed towards the sky and located in the desert with mountains and a blue sky on the horizon

Night photo of a midnight blue sky with thousands of stars above a mountainous landscape

2011

Creation of the Jasper dark sky preserve

Observatories

2018

Planned launch of the James Webb Space Telescope by Canada, the United States and Europe.

Observatories

Image of a telescope with a deployed, circular yellow antenna located above a series of solar panels. The rectangular yellow control box is beneath the telescope.

Digital drawing of an observatory in the desert with a large dome and a very large spherical opening

Futur

Planned inauguration of the Thirty Meter Telescope

Observatories