The Astronomical Lantern Slide Set and the Eidouranion in Australia Martin Bush School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
[email protected] Martin Bush is a Research Fellow in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne with expertise in the cultural history of popular science and professional experience in science communication and the museum sector. Interests include planetariums, public reasoning practices and popular astronomy in Australia in the era of the lantern slide. The Astronomical Lantern Slide Set and the Eidouranion in Australia Astronomical lantern slide sets were amongst the first to be commercially produced, and also the most long-lasting. The visual techniques of lanternism were shaped by earlier practice of stage astronomy, involving devices like the Eidouranion and the Dioastrodoxon. I describe the extent of this tradition in colonial Australia and argue that an examination of less central examples is revealing of its full influence. Evidence for a number of transparent orrieries in Australia is presented, including that of John Cox in Sydney, and Phineas Moss in Tasmania. Other references to the devices of stage astronomy, such as by Laurence Hynes Halloran, are also described. Visualisations of stage astronomy were significant in Australia as in Britain for the practice of astronomical lanternism. The transfer of visual techniques is interesting at both ends of the magic lantern period. Keywords: magic lanterns; popular astronomy; eidouranion; history of popular science in Australia Introduction Astronomical lantern slides were a remarkably long-lived genre. Amongst the first images to be commercially produced as slides for magic lanterns in sets, some astronomical collections were produced and sold in nearly unchanged form from the 1830s through to the twentieth century.