Don't be enraged against my poor photography. You cannot grasp by what links this department of science holds me captive — I see it sliding out of my hands while I have been dallying with the stars. Light was my first love! In an evil hour I quitted her for those brute & heavy bodies which tumbling along throu' ether, startle her deep recesses and drive her trembling and sensitive into our view.

John Herschel to his wife, Margaret (1841)