Henry Draper (March 7, 1837 – November 20, 1882) was an American doctor and astronomer. He is best known today as a pioneer of astrophotography.
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 in the winter of 1839-1840. Draper's mother was Antonia Coetana de Paiva Pereira Gardner, daughter of the perso...
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Henry Draper (March 7, 1837 – November 20, 1882) was an American doctor and astronomer. He is best known today as a pioneer of astrophotography.
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 in the winter of 1839-1840. Draper's mother was Antonia Coetana de Paiva Pereira Gardner, daughter of the personal physician to the Emperor of Brazil.
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). In 1867 he married Anna Mary Palmer, a wealthy socialite.
Draper was one of the pioneers of the use of astrophotography. He took the first stellar spectrum in 1872 that showed absorption lines. He directed an expedition to photograph the 1874 transit of Venus, and was the first to...
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