James Nasmyth, son of artist Alexander Nasmyth, is best known as an engineer through his involvement in the development of the steam hammer. In addition to this, Nasmyth with also a keen artist, photographer and astronomer.
In 1871 he co-wrote The Moon: Considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite featuring several of his lunar photographs. As photography had not yet advanced to a level that made photography of its features possible, Nasmyth's photographs feature detailed plaster casts of the moon's surface that he sculpted after sketching the terrain he viewed through his home-made telescope.