photographic plate
3
6.8
- noun
- /ˌfoʊtəˈgræfɪk pleɪt/
- Archaic
:
placa fotográfica
- Even ground-based telescopes now routinely use electronic cameras because they tolerate much longer exposure times than do photographic plates.
Examples
-
Although our first observations were with photographic plates.
Academic text (1993) -
To observe a galaxy, it is not enough merely to record the smudge on the photographic plate or in the CCD frame.
Academic text (2000) -
Place the photographic plate of the face in an acid bath.
Academic text (2003) -
The windows have been painted black, and there are photographic plates and futuristic photo equipment all around.
Fiction book (1994) -
The chair is where the astronomer sits and uses a big photographic plate to take an image of a Galaxy.
-
Over the course of two weeks, he found two previously unknown, faint, fuzzy images on his photographic plates.
Academic text (1992) -
Cannon began a systematic classification of all stars on all Harvard photographic plates down to 9th magnitude.
Academic text (1992) -
Photographic plate showing Venus passing across the face of the Sun during the last transit in 1882.
Academic text (2004) -
By the way, many galaxies more distant than those in Zwicky's catalog are also clearly visible on these photographic plates.
Academic text (1990) -
Tombaugh discovered Pluto on photographic plates taken in 1930 at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Synonyms
296
3.4
A flat thin piece of material like metal or bone
A glass plate with a light-sensitive coating used by early photographers
How Detailed
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound meaning is directly derivable from 'photographic' (relating to cameras/film) + 'plate' (a flat sheet), so a learner who knows both words can infer it refers to a flat sheet used in photography. Although the item is somewhat technical, the composition follows transparent, cross-linguistically common noun + modifier patterns and should be understandable to a B1 learner.
Etymology
The name photographic plate comes from early photography when people used a flat glass or metal plate covered with light-sensitive chemicals. The plate literally caught the light 'to make a picture', so the term means 'a flat sheet used to record an image'.