Station - The bedroom as a personal space and laboratory

This station is next to the main house of Roça Sundy, where Eddington and Cottingham were lodged.

Roça Sundy

Try it… experience on your mobile phone the room shared by the expeditionaries.

Did you notice an unusual instrument on the desk? It is a micrometer, an instrument that allows the analysis of astronomical photographic plates.

Why is this?

Due to the high temperatures experienced, the room was used to develop the photographic plates, instead of one of the huts, as Cottingham refers in a telegram: 

Use our bedroom for developing, as the hut is unbearably hot and no ventilation… Usually around 3 a.m…

In addition to the reference to the night period, there is also a record of the use of ice to maintain the correct temperature during plate processing.

Credit: Simões e Sousa, 2024.

Also try… identify other details in the reconstruction of the room that demonstrate that the room was used as a laboratory.

Did you know?

The intersection between the professional and personal environment lived in the bedroom space is evident in the records made by the expeditionaries.

One curious episode is mentioned in a telegram written by Cottingham and addressed to the Royal Astronomical Society in which he states that his new pajamas had become dirty during a process of development:

(…) on removing the rubber cork a small piece of glass came out of the bottom of the bottle and the concentrated developer trickled down my new thin pyjamas.

Now it’s your turn… enjoy the view and have a refreshing drink on the balcony of Roça Sundy.