Description

This item is a piece of camera equipment with a photographic plate holder on one side and an adjustable metal holder on the other.

This instrument, known as a precession camera, was used to take x-ray diffraction pictures of crystals. MIT professor Martin Buerger first conceived of it in 1937, and working with his machinist, Charles Supper, the two men collaborated on its manufacture in the early 1940s. The Buerger-type mechanical precession camera became the standard instrument for creating x-ray diffraction images until the 1980s.

Additional Information

See Martin J. Buerger, The Procession Method of Crystallography (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1964)