Lewis Morris Rutherfurd

Lewis Morris Rutherfurd
Lewis Morris Rutherfurd
Born	November 25, 1816 Morrisania, New York
Died	May 30, 1892(1892-05-30) (aged 75) Tranquility, New Jersey
Nationality	American
Fields	Astronomy
Known for	Astrophotography

Lewis Morris Rutherfurd (November 25, 1816 – May 30, 1892) was an American lawyer and astronomer, and a pioneering astrophotographer.

Rutherfurd was born in Morrisania, New York to Robert Walter Rutherfurd and Sabina Morris, and was the grandson of U.S. Senator John Rutherfurd and great-grandson of Lewis Morris, the Signer of the Declaration of Independence. He graduated from Williams College, Massachusetts in 1834, then practiced law after being admitted to the bar in 1837 with William H. Seward in Auburn, New York. On July 22, 1841 he married Margaret Chanler. Their son Stuyvesant Rutherford was born in 1842.

Lewis Rutherfurd abandoned his study of law in 1849 to dedicate his leisure to science, particularly astronomy. He performed pioneering work in spectral analysis, and experimented with celestial photography. He invented instruments for his studies, including the micrometer for measuring photographs, a machine for producing improved ruled diffraction gratings, and the first telescope designed specifically for astrophotography.

Using his instrumentation, Rutherfurd produced a quality collection of photographs of the Sun, Moon, and planets, as well as star clusters and stars down to the fifth magnitude. In 1862 he began making spectroscopic studies using his new diffraction grating. He noticed distinct categories of spectral classes of stars, which Angelo Secchi expanded upon in 1867 to list a set of four stellar classes.