Two 1840 images by William Henry Draper show progress in photographing the Moon made that year.

This Daguerreotype of the 1851 Total Solar Eclipse is the first to show the 'diamond Ring' effect as the last bit of the Sun disappears behind the Moon, revealing the bright inner corona encircling the Moon.

In 1880 William Henry Draper made this first photograph of a nebula, the Great Nebula in Orion.

The first color film image of Earth in space was made October 13, 1960 from a re entry vehicle at 700 miles altitude.

Before then small rockets carried cameras with color movie film which obtained many images from the tumbling missile, later assembled into wide views.

The first hand held photographs of Earth from space were made by Cosmonaut Gherman Titov during the Vostok 2 mission on August 6, 1961. Numerous other 'firsts' regarding photographs of Earth from space can be seen on this page.

Page two- First Planetary images.