Burnham's Celestial Handbook (Dover, 1966 updated 1978) is a classic reference for astronomical observers. Robert Burnham, Jr. worked at the Lowell Observatory, and used photographs from Lowell, Palomar, and other professional sources to illustrate the book. Most of the photos were considered to be excellent quality at the time they were taken - presumably all prior to 1966.

In order to compare contemporary amateur astro-imaging with Burnham's images, I scanned selected pages from the Burnham volumes, and selected corresponding images from my own work over the past 2-3 years. I have not yet fully oriented the images - i.e., rotated and scaled my images to match those from the Burnham books - but you can still get a feeling for the comparison between these sets of images.

As my own work is still at an early stage on the learning curve (what I'll call "mid-level"), I really should add a third column, showing the work of some of the great astro-imagers (Adam Block, Tony Hallas, Ken Crawford, NeilFlemming, et.al.) to illustrate how much further the comparison can be stretched, given the superb skills of today's top astro-imagers. I will need to get permission for use of the images, etc.

PLEASE note that I am not trying to put down in any way the great work that Burnham did to collect all of these photos and information, and compile his books. Especially, considering his circumstances (Wikipedia has a brief description of Burnham's sad life HERE). Nor am I trying to demonstrate my own abilities (which are still quite low on the learning curve). However, I think it is very interesting to compare what a "mid-level" amateur can do these days - given the hardware and software now available - compared to professionals in the "old" days. I should also note that professionals today - using many of the same basic telescopes that were used for the Burnhamphotos - can produce outstanding quality images by also using advanced hardware (such as adaptive optics), and the same (or similar) software to what amateurs are using today. In fact, the Palomar 200" telescope, with the most recent adaptive optics system, can rival the Hubble, in terms of resolution!

Of course, for many of the images, you can easily see the difference in resolution, when comparing my measly 12" scope to the 200" Palomar scope. The other telescopes used for the Burnham images include the Mount Wilson 100", the Lick 100", the US Naval Observatory 61", Mount Wilson 60", Lowel 42", and a Lowel Observatory 13" astrograph. However, it is still amazing that some of the amateur images seem to rival 100-200" scopes! At the scales we are seeing (with printing limitations, scanning limitations, and internet display limitations, etc.), many of the images look qualitatively very similar.

Before looking at these images please note that 1) many of my images are from my earlier days and are rather poor (i.e., not a good example of contemporary imaging); 2) that just the addition of color alone is a great help to many photos (Trifid, Eagle, Orion, etc.); 3) no information was provided by Burnham regarding the exposure times and other conditions of the photos; 4) you are seeing only small versions of these images, so cannot really determine resolution or other details of the images; and 5) these are done for FUN (!) and not to make any particular point ... except that it is truly amazing what technology has enabled amateurs to do these days.

Without further ado, the following sets of images are presented for your enjoyment. Those on the left are from Burnham, and those on the right were taken by me over the past couple of years. I have not put them in any particular order.