The First Moon Photos: A Brief History.

The oldest surviving photo of the Moon was taken by John William Draper in 1840 using the daguerreotype process and a 5-inch reflecting telescope. James Nasmyth made plaster casts of the lunar surface, which were then photographed to give Victorian viewers a detailed representation of the Moon's surface. Henry Draper, son of William Henry Draper, inherited his father's passion for astrophotography and took some of the best Moon photos of the 19th century. Today, the Moon continues to be an object of fascination for photographers, with Andrew McCarthy shooting two million photos over the course of a month in 2022 to show how the Moon wobbles in the sky.