Henry Draper

Henry Draper (March 7, 1837 – November 20, 1882) was an American medical doctor and amateur astronomer. He is best known today as a pioneer of astrophotography.

Life and work

Henry Draper's father, John William Draper, was an accomplished doctor, chemist, botanist, and professor at New York University; he was also the first to photograph the moon through a telescope (1840). Draper's mother was Antonia Caetana de Paiva Pereira Gardner, daughter of the personal physician to the Emperor of Brazil. His niece, Antonia Maury was also an astronomer.

He graduated from New York University School of Medicine, at the age of 20, in 1857. He worked first as a physician at Bellevue Hospital, and later as both a professor and dean of medicine at New York University (NYU). On May 31, 1862, he joined S Company, 12th New York Infantry Regiment as a surgeon along with his brother John Christopher, who joined as an assistant surgeon. They served until October 8, 1862. In 1867 he married Mary Anna Palmer, a wealthy socialite who collaborated with him in his astronomy work.

Draper was one of the pioneers of the use of astrophotography. In 1872, he took a stellar spectrum that showed absorption lines. Others, such as Joseph Fraunhofer, Lewis Morris Rutherfurd and Angelo Secchi, preceded him in that ambition.

He resigned his chair in the medical department in 1873, to allow for more time for original research.

He directed an expedition to photograph the 1874 transit of Venus, and was the first to photograph the Orion Nebula, on September 30, 1880. Using his 11-inch Clark Brothers photographic refractor he took a 50-minute exposure. He photographed the spectrum of Jupiter in 1880.