"elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society and grants were provided for the construction of new telescopes. Herschel pioneered the use of astronomical spectrophotometry, using prisms and temperature measuring equipment to measure the wavelength distribution of stellar spectra. In addition, Herschel discovered infrared radiation. Other work included an improved determination of the rotation period of Mars, the discovery that the Martian polar caps vary seasonally, the discovery of Titania and Oberon (moons of Uranus) and Enceladus and Mimas (moons of Saturn). Herschel was made a Knight of the Royal Guelphic Order in 1816. He was the first President of"
"September 20, 1783. NGC 1980 NGC 1980 (also known as OCL 529, Collinder 72 and The Lost Jewel of Orion) is a young open cluster associated with an emission nebula which is located in the constellation Orion. It was discovered by John Herschel on 31 November 1786. Its size is 14.00 by 14.0 arc minutes and is located around the star Iota Orionis on the southern tip of the Orion Constellation. Even though Herschel made his first observation of the cluster which was called WH V 31 on 31 November 1786, but he possibly observed it during his studies of"
"the ring to the refraction of sunlight, which he correctly hypothesized was caused by the atmosphere of Venus. Further evidence of Venus' atmosphere was gathered in observations by Johann Hieronymus Schröter in 1779. The planet also offered Alexis Claude de Clairaut an opportunity to work his considerable mathematical skills when he computed the mass of Venus through complex mathematical calculations. However, much astronomical work of the period becomes shadowed by one of the most dramatic scientific discoveries of the 18th century. On 13 March 1781, amateur astronomer William Herschel spotted a new planet with his powerful reflecting telescope. Initially identified"
"the missing planet predicted at about 2.8 AU from the Sun by the Titius-Bode law, partly because of the discovery, by Sir William Herschel in 1781, of the planet Uranus at the distance predicted by the law. This task required that hand-drawn sky charts be prepared for all stars in the zodiacal band down to an agreed-upon limit of faintness. On subsequent nights, the sky would be charted again and any moving object would, hopefully, be spotted. The expected motion of the missing planet was about 30 seconds of arc per hour, readily discernible by observers. The first object, Ceres,"
"planet rather than a comet. Berlin astronomer Johann Elert Bode described Herschel's discovery as ""a moving star that can be deemed a hitherto unknown planet-like object circulating beyond the orbit of Saturn"". Bode concluded that its near-circular orbit was more like a planet than a comet. The object was soon universally accepted as a new planet. By 1783, Herschel acknowledged this to Royal Society president Joseph Banks: ""By the observation of the most eminent Astronomers in Europe it appears that the new star, which I had the honour of pointing out to them in March 1781, is a Primary Planet"
"assumed the motions which I ascribe to the Earth later on in the volume, by long and intense study I finally found that if the motions of the other planets are correlated with the orbiting of the earth..."" Galileo also asserts that Earth is a planet in the ""Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems"": ""[T]he Earth, no less than the moon or any other planet, is to be numbered among the natural bodies that move circularly."" In 1781, the astronomer William Herschel was searching the sky for elusive stellar parallaxes, when he observed what he termed a comet in"
"NGC 1980 NGC 1980 (also known as OCL 529, Collinder 72 and The Lost Jewel of Orion) is a young open cluster associated with an emission nebula which is located in the constellation Orion. It was discovered by John Herschel on 31 November 1786. Its size is 14.00 by 14.0 arc minutes and is located around the star Iota Orionis on the southern tip of the Orion Constellation. Even though Herschel made his first observation of the cluster which was called WH V 31 on 31 November 1786, but he possibly observed it during his studies of double stars on"
"the pole. He observed that the size of the cap varied over time. The German-born British astronomer Sir William Herschel began making observations of the planet Mars in 1777, particularly of the planet's polar caps. In 1781, he noted that the south cap appeared ""extremely large"", which he ascribed to that pole being in darkness for the past twelve months. By 1784, the southern cap appeared much smaller, thereby suggesting that the caps vary with the planet's seasons and thus were made of ice. In 1781, he estimated the rotation period of Mars as 24 39 21.67 and measured the"
"Telescopium Herschelii Telescopium Herschelii (Latin for ""Herschel's telescope""), also formerly known as Tubus Hershelli Major, is a former constellation in the northern celestial hemisphere. Maximilian Hell established it in 1789 to honour Sir William Herschel's discovery of the planet Uranus. It fell out of use by the end of the 19th century. Psi Aurigae at apparent magnitude 4.8 was the constellation's brightest star. It was one of two constellations created by Maximilian Hell in 1789 to honour the famous English astronomer Sir William Herschel's discovery of the planet Uranus. Named ""Tubus Hershelli Major"" by Hell, it was located in the"
"Herschel (Mimantean crater) Herschel is a huge crater in the leading hemisphere of the Saturnian moon Mimas, on the equator at 100° longitude. It is named after the eighteenth century astronomer William Herschel, who discovered Mimas in 1789. Herschel is the largest crater relative to its parent body of any equilibrium planetary moon in the Solar System. It is so large that astronomers have expressed surprise that Mimas was not shattered by the impact that caused it. It measures across, almost one third the diameter of Mimas. Its walls are approximately high, parts of its floor are deep, and its"
"and originally called it ""Georgium Sidus"" (George's Star) in honour of King George III of the United Kingdom. French astronomers began calling it Herschel before German Johann Bode proposed the name Uranus, after the Greek god. The name ""Uranus"" did not come into common usage until around 1850. Starting in 1801, asteroids were discovered between Mars and Jupiter. The first few (Ceres, Pallas, Juno, Vesta) were initially considered planets. As more and more were discovered, they were soon stripped of their planetary status. On the other hand, Pluto was considered to be a planet at the time of its discovery"
"starry heavens."" With her brother, she discovered over 2400 astronomical objects over twenty years. The asteroid 281 Lucretia (discovered 1888) was named after Caroline's second given name, and the crater C. Herschel on the Moon is named after her. Adrienne Rich's 1968 poem ""Planetarium"" celebrates Caroline Herschel's life and scientific achievements. The artwork ""The Dinner Party"", which celebrates historical women who have made extraordinary contributions, features a place setting for Caroline Herschel. Google honoured her with a Google Doodle on her 266th birthday (16 March 2016). Herschel was honoured by the King of Prussia and the Royal Astronomical Society. The"
"February 1800, and the planet Uranus in March 1781; he had made important improvements to the reflecting telescope by increasing the mirror diameter. Herschel then built a 20-ft reflecting telescope and invented the star count, working out that the Milky Way was a disc, which he called a ""grindstone"", and the Milky Way was a galaxy but that that was all the universe contained; he had noticed other nebulas but did not recognise what these were; only when the Hooker telescope was built sufficiently large-enough in California in 1924, did Edwin Hubble realise that these nebulas (Andromeda Galaxy) were other"
"and so would be considered (dwarf) planets if they were in direct orbit about the Sun. The remaining moons were discovered after 1985, either during the ""Voyager 2"" flyby mission or with the aid of advanced Earth-based telescopes. The first two moons to be discovered were Titania and Oberon, which were spotted by Sir William Herschel on January 11, 1787, six years after he had discovered the planet itself. Later, Herschel thought he had discovered up to six moons (see below) and perhaps even a ring. For nearly 50 years, Herschel's instrument was the only one with which the moons"
"NGC 3081 NGC 3081 is a barred lenticular ring galaxy in the constellation of Hydra. NGC 3081 is located about 85 million light-years away from Earth, which means, given its apparent dimensions, that NGC 3081 is approximately 60,000 light years across. It is a type II Seyfert galaxy, characterised by its bright nucleus. It was discovered by William Herschel on 21 December 1786. NGC 3081 is seen nearly face-on. The galaxy's barred spiral centre is surrounded by a bright loop known as a resonance ring. This ring is full of bright clusters and bursts of new star formation, and frames"
"John Herschel Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet (; 7 March 1792 – 11 May 1871) was an English polymath, mathematician, astronomer, chemist, inventor, experimental photographer who invented the blueprint, and did botanical work. Herschel originated the use of the Julian day system in astronomy. He named seven moons of Saturn and four moons of Uranus. He made many contributions to the science of photography, and investigated colour blindness and the chemical power of ultraviolet rays; his ""Preliminary Discourse"" (1831), which advocated an inductive approach to scientific experiment and theory building, was an important contribution to the philosophy of"
"Saturn Nebula The Saturn Nebula or NGC 7009 is a planetary nebula in the constellation Aquarius. It appears as a greenish-yellowish hue in a small amateur telescope. It was discovered by William Herschel on September 7, 1782, using a telescope of his own design in the garden at his home in Datchet, England, and was one of his earliest discoveries in his sky survey. The nebula was originally a low-mass star that ejected its layers into space, forming the nebula. The central star is now a bright white dwarf star of apparent magnitude 11.5. The Saturn Nebula gets its name"
"about 40% of its surface. Titania was discovered by William Herschel on January 11, 1787, the same day he discovered Uranus's second largest moon, Oberon. He later reported the discoveries of four more satellites, although they were subsequently revealed as spurious. For nearly fifty years following their discovery, Titania and Oberon would not be observed by any instrument other than William Herschel's, although the moon can be seen from Earth with a present-day high-end amateur telescope. All of Uranus's moons are named after characters created by William Shakespeare or Alexander Pope. The name Titania was taken from the Queen of"
"return again in 1758. When it reappears as expected, the comet is named in his honor. French astronomer Nicolas de Lacaille sails to southern oceans and begins work compiling a catalog of more than 10000 stars in the southern sky. Although Halley and others have observed from the Southern Hemisphere before, Lacaille's star catalog is the first comprehensive one of the southern sky. Amateur astronomer William Herschel discovers the planet Uranus, although he at first mistakes it for a comet. Uranus is the first planet to be discovered beyond Saturn, which was thought to be the most distant planet in"
"their nature, should occur. By 1807, further investigation revealed two new objects in the region: Juno and Vesta. The burning of Lilienthal in the Napoleonic wars, where the main body of work had been done, brought this first period of discovery to a close. Despite Herschel's coinage, for several decades it remained common practice to refer to these objects as planets and to prefix their names with numbers representing their date of discovery: 1 Ceres, 2 Pallas, 3 Juno, 4 Vesta. However, in 1845 astronomers detected a fifth object (5 Astraea) and, shortly thereafter, new objects were found at an"
"set of legs. NGC 1981 NGC 1981 (also known as OCL 525) is an open cluster which is located in the Orion constellation. It was discovered by John Herschel on 4 January 1827. Its apparent magnitude is 4.2 and its size is 28.00 arc minutes. It lies to the north of the Orion Nebula, separated from it by the Sh2-279 region containing NGC 1973, 1975, and 1977. Some say it looks like an Alligator or Crocodile, Its eastern star as the snout, Its western star as its tail and the two groups of three stars in the middle of it"
"planetary nebula approximately 3,000 light-years away that was discovered by English astronomer William Herschel in 1786. It is 9th magnitude and was named for its appearance in the Hubble Space Telescope, though it appears as a fuzzy blue-green disk in an amateur telescope. NGC 6543 has a very complex shape due to gravitational interactions between the components of the multiple star at its center, the progenitor of the nebula approximately 1,000 years ago. It is located 9.6 arcminutes away from the north ecliptic pole to the west-northwest. It is also related to IC 4677, a nebula that appears as a"
"""power pellet"" known from Pac-Man gameplay. Mimas (moon) Mimas, also designated Saturn I, is a moon of Saturn which was discovered in 1789 by William Herschel. It is named after Mimas, a son of Gaia in Greek mythology. With a diameter of it is the smallest astronomical body that is known to be rounded in shape because of self-gravitation. Mimas was discovered by the astronomer William Herschel on 17 September 1789. He recorded his discovery as follows: ""The great light of my forty-foot [12 m] telescope was so useful that on the 17th of September, 1789, I remarked the seventh"
"uncertain, and Herschel first thought the objects were stars surrounded by material that was condensing into planets rather than what is now known to be evidence of dead stars that have incinerated any orbiting planets. In , William Herschel had discovered the object now known as NGC 7009 (the ""Saturn Nebula""), upon which he used the term ""planetary nebula"". In 1785, Herschel wrote to Jerome Lalande: ""These are celestial bodies of which as yet we have no clear idea and which are perhaps of a type quite different from those that we are familiar with in the heavens. I have"
"or the ""Georgian Planet"" in honour of his new patron, King George III. He explained this decision in a letter to Joseph Banks: Herschel's proposed name was not popular outside Britain, and alternatives were soon proposed. Astronomer Jérôme Lalande proposed that it be named ""Herschel"" in honour of its discoverer. Swedish astronomer Erik Prosperin proposed the name ""Neptune"", which was supported by other astronomers who liked the idea to commemorate the victories of the British Royal Naval fleet in the course of the American Revolutionary War by calling the new planet even ""Neptune George III"" or ""Neptune Great Britain"". In"
"planet ""Leverrier"", after himself, and he had loyal support in this from the observatory director, François Arago, who in turn proposed a new symbol for the planet (). However, this suggestion met with stiff resistance outside France. French almanacs quickly reintroduced the name ""Herschel"" for ""Uranus"", after that planet's discoverer Sir William Herschel, and ""Leverrier"" for the new planet. Professor James Pillans of the University of Edinburgh defended the name ""Janus"" for the new planet, and proposed a key for its symbol. Meanwhile, German-Russian astronomer Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve presented the name ""Neptune"" on December 29, 1846, to the"
"(discovered in August 1779 by William Herschel). There were once thought to be two more distant components—Polaris C and Polaris D—but these have been shown not to be physically associated with the Polaris system. Polaris Aa is a 5.4 solar mass () F7 yellow supergiant of spectral type Ib. This is the first classical Cepheid to have a mass determined from its orbit. The two smaller companions are Polaris B, a F3 main-sequence star orbiting at a distance of 2400 astronomical units (au), and Polaris Ab (or P), a very close F6 main-sequence star with an 18.8 au radius orbit"
"that the nebula in fact envelops a tightly orbiting double star with a period of up to 10 days. Gas is presumably expanding away from the larger star of the pair. NGC 1514 NGC 1514 is a planetary nebula that was discovered by William Herschel on November 13, 1790, describing it ""A most singular phaenomenon"" and forcing him to rethink his ideas on the construction of the heavens. Up until this point Herschel was convinced that all nebulae consisted of masses of stars too remote to resolve, but now here was a single star ""surrounded with a faintly luminous atmosphere."""
"NGC 1981 NGC 1981 (also known as OCL 525) is an open cluster which is located in the Orion constellation. It was discovered by John Herschel on 4 January 1827. Its apparent magnitude is 4.2 and its size is 28.00 arc minutes. It lies to the north of the Orion Nebula, separated from it by the Sh2-279 region containing NGC 1973, 1975, and 1977. Some say it looks like an Alligator or Crocodile, Its eastern star as the snout, Its western star as its tail and the two groups of three stars in the middle of it as its two"
"Heart Nebula The Heart Nebula, IC 1805, Sharpless 2-190, lies some 7500 light years away from Earth and is located in the Perseus Arm of the Galaxy in the constellation Cassiopeia. It was discovered by William Herschel on 3 November 1787. This is an emission nebula showing glowing ionized hydrogen gas and darker dust lanes. The very brightest part of this nebula (the knot at the western edge) is separately classified as ""NGC 896"", because it was the first part of this nebula to be discovered. The nebula's intense red output and its configuration are driven by the radiation emanating"
"Cat's Eye Nebula The Cat's Eye Nebula or NGC 6543, is a relatively bright planetary nebula in the northern constellation of Draco, discovered by William Herschel on February 15, 1786. It was the first planetary nebula whose spectrum was investigated by the English amateur astronomer William Huggins, demonstrating that planetary nebulae were gaseous and not stellar in nature. Structurally, the object has had high-resolution images by the Hubble Space Telescope revealing knots, jets, bubbles and complex arcs, being illuminated by the central hot planetary nebula nucleus (PNN). It is a well-studied object that has been observed from radio to X-ray"
"NGC 891 NGC 891 (also known as Caldwell 23 and Silver Sliver Galaxy) is an edge-on unbarred spiral galaxy about 30 million light-years away in the constellation Andromeda. It was discovered by William Herschel on October 6, 1784. The galaxy is a member of the NGC 1023 group of galaxies in the Local Supercluster. It has an H II nucleus. The object is visible in small to moderate size telescopes as a faint elongated smear of light with a dust lane visible in larger apertures. In 1999, the Hubble Space Telescope imaged NGC 891 in infrared. In 2005, due to"
"NGC 517 NGC 517, also occasionally referred to as PGC 5214 or UGC 960, is a lenticular galaxy located approximately 188 million light-years from the Solar System in the constellation Pisces. It was discovered on 13 September 1784 by astronomer William Herschel. Herschel discovered the object along with NGC 515 using Beta Andromedae as a reference star. He described his discovery as ""two, both stellar"", indicating his misidentification of the object as a star. While Herschel only noted one position about 35"" east of NGC 515, Heinrich d'Arrest made the first accurate measurement of the object, using observation data of"