Wow, from a quick browse, I think the moon crater image from the 1850s is what I find most technically impressive because it intersects telescope optics, negative chemistry, and printing chemistry. A 3683x2920 pixel image can be downloaded. http://search.getty.edu/museum/records/musobject?objectid=44...
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Considering the technology available at the time, the detail is exquisite.
FYI, this is Copernicus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copernicus_(lunar_crater)
Thanks for the ID on the crater.
Observation... Copernicus is 93 km in diameter. The crater in the old print is approximately 9.3 cm in diameter. So in 1850, that astrophotographer printed a detailed 1:1,000,000 scale lunar map of that region.
Today, we can download a 1:1,000,000 scale lunar map of that region by printing the following doc at 30"x30" page size: http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/images/Lunar/lac_58_wac.pd...
Then, for apples-to-apples, you can trim Copernicus out of the modern print in a 13 x 16.5 cm rectangle.
Voila, a 160-year A-B of knowledge and techniques. :)
(Someone fix my math if it's off.)
> Copernicus is 93 km in diameter.
With a big enough computer the mapping data could be imported into Minecraft.
(http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/992750-mapping-using-rea...)
Sticking to one MC block = 1 metre would be tricky with 93 km. And there might be hight limit problems too.
Now up at http://enwp.org/John_Herschel and http://enwp.org/Copernicus_(lunar crater)
No idea who might've done this? It's absolutely incredible.
The name at on the image is this bloke:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Herschel