Electric telescope

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Electric telescope

Postby Harry Dalek » Sun Mar 26, 2017 7:54 pm

Something i didn't know we call the Nipkow disk system after the inventor but the inventor called he's system Elektrisches Teleskop Electric telescope.Mr Nipkow's invention is never remembered by its invention name :idea:
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Re: Electric telescope

Postby Dave Moll » Mon Mar 27, 2017 5:40 pm

Probably because it would cause confusion with that which is normally known as a telescope.

I have always felt that this was the reason for adoption of the name "television" (from the Greek τελος/telos, meaning far and the Latin videre meaning to see), rather than the all-Greek "telescope" (from σκοπειν/skopein, the Greek for "to see").
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Re: Electric telescope

Postby Klaas Robers » Tue Mar 28, 2017 10:11 pm

Harry, look into the past. When Paul Nipkow patented his disc, he could not call it the "Nipkow Disc", as nobody would have recognized that. It was a system for "Tele Viewing". And it used a rotating disc.

Only after many years, when his expensive patent had expired, the missing and not mentioned link: electronic amplification, was invented and the system could come to live. And THEN the name Nipkow Disc was given to this system of Tele Viewing.
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Re: Electric telescope

Postby Harry Dalek » Tue Mar 28, 2017 11:03 pm

Thanks Dave and Klass i just wondered what he had called he's system ..i suppose its very hard to come up with a name for a new idea like this back then .
I don't think he had ever made it ,i am glad he got interviewed in Television magazine in the 30's what was going on in he's mind when he came up with the idea ,seems experimenting with a bell telephone and making hes own DIY microphone he started to think about television must not of called it that then but later in 1883 it was invented in he's mind :idea: ...looking into it a bit more the next Nipkow disk system is by Henry Sutton in 1890 but again was that ever made too ? what was the first made Nipkow system?
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Re: Electric telescope

Postby Klaas Robers » Wed Mar 29, 2017 7:10 am

It is not impossible that Baird made the first one. However there were others that only could make "shadow" images, purely black and white. Baird was defintely the first that made grey scale pictures. The problem was colour sensitivity and gamma.

The first photo cells were most sensitive in the blue colours. If you illuminate a face (that is were it is meant for) with blue light, or which is the same, use a blue sensitive photo cell, then you get almost unrecognizable faces. The same is with infra red sensitive photo cells and/or infra red light. No, it was not that easy in those days...
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Re: Electric telescope

Postby Harry Dalek » Wed Mar 29, 2017 8:33 pm

Klaas Robers wrote:It is not impossible that Baird made the first one. However there were others that only could make "shadow" images, purely black and white. Baird was defintely the first that made grey scale pictures. The problem was colour sensitivity and gamma.

The first photo cells were most sensitive in the blue colours. If you illuminate a face (that is were it is meant for) with blue light, or which is the same, use a blue sensitive photo cell, then you get almost unrecognizable faces. The same is with infra red sensitive photo cells and/or infra red light. No, it was not that easy in those days...


OH may be looking into it some more it could of been Jenkins he did transmit moving images as in using a real Nipkow ...i wonder why he failed and Baird won Jenkins was just a good a inventor we will never know but luck is a funny thing .
In 1925 Jenkins used Nipkow disk and transmitted the silhouette image of a toy windmill in motion, over a distance of ... station in Maryland to his laboratory in Washington, D.C., using a lensed disk scanner with a 48-line resolution
My only thing here is both inventors used a Lens disk ...mmmm what about the simple disk with just holes !
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Re: Electric telescope

Postby Klaas Robers » Wed Mar 29, 2017 11:05 pm

That is what I said: only shadow images, no grey scale reproduction. The same is with a French man. You want to see the face of a person with more or less natural grey shades. That is where J.L. Baird was hunting after. J.L. demonstrated this in 1926 in a store in London. However nobody has photographed what was visible. But there are photo's of a crowd waiting to get a viewing place.

And then still there were the problems with the wrong type of light and the photo cells.
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Re: Electric telescope

Postby Harry Dalek » Thu Mar 30, 2017 4:49 pm

Klaas Robers wrote:That is what I said: only shadow images, no grey scale reproduction. The same is with a French man. You want to see the face of a person with more or less natural grey shades. That is where J.L. Baird was hunting after. J.L. demonstrated this in 1926 in a store in London. However nobody has photographed what was visible. But there are photo's of a crowd waiting to get a viewing place.

And then still there were the problems with the wrong type of light and the photo cells.


Yes Klass
But i meaning more perhaps Jenkins was the first to use a real Nipkow to experiment with so he might of done this before Baird ? i find this part interesting as some one must of been the first and i would of thought a aperture nipkow disk would of come first over a lens disk .
Baird of cause won the race for a true as you say television system with grey scale ,jenkins and others lost out .
I suppose too on the light problem you mention using lens disks does give you more light levels with the poor light sensitive devices .
Sounds like they didn't test the photo sensitive device with different light wavelengths....
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Re: Electric telescope

Postby Klaas Robers » Thu Mar 30, 2017 5:44 pm

You may assume that Paul Nipkow made himself something of an aperture "image dissector". Crude amplification was already possible by a combined device of a telephone receiver and a telephone microphone. And there were already fast and sensitive relays, that could give on-off signals. Who knows what Paul has done in those days around 1880. So Jenkins was not the first one, neither Baird, that experimented with the disc, lens or aperture.

It was already in 1850 that a telefax was demonstrated, but this was seen as picture telegraph. This was only on-off, black and white. That must be the reason that Jenkins experimented with this, a very fast picture telegraph. And it is also not impossible that Paul Nipkow had this in mind when he started some disc experiments. However in his patent he wrote nothing about on-off modulation. That is not unusual, write a patent as broad as possible.
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Re: Electric telescope

Postby Harry Dalek » Thu Mar 30, 2017 7:22 pm

Klaas Robers wrote:You may assume that Paul Nipkow made himself something of an aperture "image dissector". Crude amplification was already possible by a combined device of a telephone receiver and a telephone microphone. And there were already fast and sensitive relays, that could give on-off signals. Who knows what Paul has done in those days around 1880. So Jenkins was not the first one, neither Baird, that experimented with the disc, lens or aperture.


Yes you would think the inventor would at least make the disk every thing i have read says he didn't ? he did say in the Television news interview he was very poor and could not even renew the patent for hes invention after a year or carry on studying it lapsed and could not experiment due to that..he had hard times .
He did say he had 2 other inventions a syncing idea and The Picture Mill ....sounds interesting ! he said he was going to put in patents for them but perhaps never did .

This site is pretty much the best pre 1900 inventors inventions on television you may know of ? http://histv2.free.fr/

worth a search here i always come across some thing new on this subject .
BTW i came across another Electric telescope name for their device pre dating Nipkows 1879 perhaps that was the words for television at that time 1870's 1880's heres one from that site image scan below

Its still very hard with the knowledge we have now to make some thing with the better devices parts we have now to use what they had then pretty much electric devices ..

It was already in 1850 that a telefax was demonstrated, but this was seen as picture telegraph. This was only on-off, black and white. That must be the reason that Jenkins experimented with this, a very fast picture telegraph. And it is also not impossible that Paul Nipkow had this in mind when he started some disc experiments. However in his patent he wrote nothing about on-off modulation. That is not unusual, write a patent as broad as possible.


Reading he's words Mr Nipkow was very poor i am sure he would of liked to but he was lucky to eat inventing the nipkow disk in hes head that xmas night he was starving .
Makes you wonder if he ever saw one working apart from reading about television in the newspapers .

Yes they made some wonderful things no electronics all wire motors electricity ....electric fax machine ,sort of the great grandfather of SSTV
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The electromagnetic spectrum has no theoretical limit at either end. If all the mass/energy in the Universe is considered a 'limit', then that would be the only real theoretical limit to the maximum frequency attainable.
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Re: Electric telescope

Postby Canberry3 » Mon Sep 11, 2017 10:51 pm

I have heard about Electric Telescope a lot. But didn't have practical experience using this. Hope from this community I might get some good ideas and info.
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Re: Electric telescope

Postby bananaya » Fri Oct 27, 2017 1:53 pm

Hi there, has anyone here ever come across any concrete evidence to suggest that Australian, Henry Sutton, was able to build the telephane (circa 1890)? I know he definitely devised a method, his designs of which appear in a number of journals, however was he able to build one and successfully transmit an image using that technology (Nipkow disc; Kerr Cell) at the time? Thank you in advance!
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Re: Electric telescope

Postby Andrew Davie » Fri Oct 27, 2017 5:50 pm

bananaya wrote:Hi there, has anyone here ever come across any concrete evidence to suggest that Australian, Henry Sutton, was able to build the telephane (circa 1890)? I know he definitely devised a method, his designs of which appear in a number of journals, however was he able to build one and successfully transmit an image using that technology (Nipkow disc; Kerr Cell) at the time? Thank you in advance!


His descendent Lorayne Branch has written a comprehensive (as yet, unpublished) book on the inventions and life of Henry Sutton. He was a smart cookie. I spent several months proof-reading and editing the manuscript, and offering some advice on the mechanical television part. I recall a diagram showing Sutton's telephane, which in my view would not have been possible for the electronics of the time. I believe Lorayne's eventual conclusion was that he did not build the telephane - but you could/should contact her directly to confirm.
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Re: Electric telescope

Postby Harry Dalek » Fri Oct 27, 2017 7:10 pm

I have not come across it in a few years but i must still have the 70's or 80's Australian i think from memory Electronics Today International where i first read of him a few pages ...it was new to me at the time and it sounded to good to be true i bet it was an April issue as a joke but i wasn't sure and i didn't read later it was so always had me wondering ...Need to track this magazine down again would be of interest .
They were reporting he broadcast the horse race from Melbourne to Ballarat via telephone or telegraph wire as it did happen but searching trove newspaper search i could not come across much on Sutton nothing on the telephane .
Its he's drawing design so it is true it was on hes mind.... you would think if nothing else he would of tried the disk with a light behind it does not seem the type of fellow who did not try in part at least he's inventions ...only speculation .
There's also reports he went to Europe to demonstrate the invention and its in the scientific magazines at the time there and in scientific american magazine around those years some are on pdf but i didn't find any thing ...there was a year and a month of the issue he was in but i could not find it ...
read here which issue year
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2176&p=19561&hilit=henry+sutton#p19561
So reports go both ways he never made it but he demonstrates or does lectures on the device made or not over seas...need to really find some thing at the time on this ....he was a very interesting person as they say we all Stand on the shoulders of giants .
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