Fiona Amery 

Fiona Amery is a Research Fellow at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. She undertook her PhD in the History and Philosophy of Science Department at the University of Cambridge, researching the ways in which the aurora has been imaged, visualised and understood in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her postdoctoral research project focuses on the epistemological power of atmospheric analogues in the late nineteenth century. 

Reproducing the Aurora Borealis in the Nineteenth Century: Imagery and Analogue Devices

In the late nineteenth century, the mechanism by which the aurora borealis operated was disputed and technological methods of imaging the phenomenon were fraught with challenges. The first photograph of the aurora was taken as late as 1892 and showed little detail. Responding to the intangibility of the aurora and the difficulty in capturing it, attempts were made to reproduce the phenomenon through hand-drawings and analogue devices to learn about its nature. Watercolour images, pastel drawings and sketches were used to mount theoretical arguments regarding the altitude at which aurorae are situated and whether aurorae appear unique to separate viewers, like a rainbow. Analogue devices imitating the phenomenon were constructed within the controlled space of the laboratory and the outdoor realm of the field. I explore Kristian Birkeland’s terrella experiments, conducted to investigate the position of the aurora around the poles, as well as the controversy surrounding Selim Lemström’s claim to have generated an artificial aurora using a large array of copper wires atop three Finnish mountains. This presentation will trace the underpinning epistemology of replication involved in ‘calling forth’ the aurora from the polar atmosphere and the ways in which the phenomenon could be ‘virtually witnessed’ through visual and material reproductions.