Colour print of drawings of the planet Jupiter

One of two colour engravings (Pl.2) with window mounts showing four colour sketches of the planet Jupiter, observed and drawn by Etienne Leopold Trouvelot in 1872.

Lithographic colour print issued by Harvard College Observatory in 1876, showing four sketches of the planet Jupiter. Produced in 1872 by Etienne Leopold Trouvelot (1827-1895), a French artist, these views were produced using the observatory's 15-inch refracting telescope made by Merz of Munich, Germany. They show the planet's characteristic cloud belts with festoon structures within that have been now been resolved in detail by robot spacecrafts such as Voyager. One of the moons of Jupiter, along with its shadow, can be seen on the sketch for the 2nd February 1872. At this time, drawings made at the telescope using only the eyes showed more detail than could be produced using the insensitive photographic films then available.