By the late 19th Century, an improved measure of the apparent magnitude of astronomical objects was obtained by photography, often attached as a dedicated plate camera at the prime focus of the telescope. Images were made on orthochromatic photoemulsive film or plates. These photographs were created by exposing the film over a short or long period of time, whose total exposure length accumulates photons and reveals fainter stars or astronomical objects invisible to the human eye. Although stars viewed in the sky are approximate point sources, the process in collecting their light cause each star to appear as small round disk, whose brightness is approximately proportional to the disk's diameter or its area. Simple measurement of the disk size can be optically judged by either a microscope or by an specially designed astronomical microdensitometer.