"down. It was Isaac Newton, with his invention of celestial dynamics and his law of gravitation, who finally explained the motions of the planets. Newton also developed the reflecting telescope. Improvements in the size and quality of the telescope led to further discoveries. The English astronomer John Flamsteed catalogued over 3000 stars, More extensive star catalogues were produced by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille. The astronomer William Herschel made a detailed catalog of nebulosity and clusters, and in 1781 discovered the planet Uranus, the first new planet found. The distance to a star was announced in 1838 when the parallax 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"
"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"
"William Herschel discovered Uranus in 1781, he at first named it ""Georgium Sidus"" (George's Star) after the King, who later funded the construction and maintenance of Herschel's 1785 40-foot telescope, which was the biggest ever built at the time. George III hoped that ""the tongue of malice may not paint my intentions in those colours she admires, nor the sycophant extoll me beyond what I deserve"", but in the popular mind George III has been both demonised and praised. While very popular at the start of his reign, by the mid-1770s George had lost the loyalty of revolutionary American colonists,"
"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 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"
"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 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"
"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"
"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"
"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"
"the vernal equinox was close to Aldebaran. English astronomer William Herschel discovered a faint companion to Aldebaran in 1782; an 11th magnitude star at an angular separation of 117″. This star was shown to be itself a close double star by S. W. Burnham in 1888, and he discovered an additional 14th magnitude companion at an angular separation of 31″. Follow on measurements of proper motion showed that Herschel's companion was diverging from Aldebaran, and hence they were not physically connected. However, the companion discovered by Burnham had almost exactly the same proper motion as Aldebaran, suggesting that the two"
"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"
"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"
"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"
"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"
"(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"
"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"
"as a comet, the celestial body later came to be accepted as a planet. Soon after, the planet was named ""Georgium Sidus"" by Herschel and was called Herschelium in France. The name Uranus, as proposed by Johann Bode, came into widespread usage after Herschel's death. On the theoretical side of astronomy, the English natural philosopher John Michell first proposed the existence of dark stars in 1783. Michell postulated that if the density of a stellar object became great enough, its attractive force would become so large that even light could not escape. He also surmised that the location of a"
"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"
"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"
"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"
"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"
"William Herschel Frederick William Herschel, (; ; 15 November 1738 – 25 August 1822) was a German-British astronomer, composer and brother of fellow astronomer Caroline Herschel, with whom he worked. Born in the Electorate of Hanover, Herschel followed his father into the Military Band of Hanover, before migrating to Great Britain in 1757 at the age of nineteen. His works were praised by Mozart, Haydn (who met Herschel in London) and Beethoven. Herschel constructed his first large telescope in 1774, after which he spent nine years carrying out sky surveys to investigate double stars. The resolving power of the Herschel"
"universe. In 1764, Charles Messier cataloged Andromeda as object M31 and incorrectly credited Marius as the discoverer despite it being visible to the naked eye. In 1785, the astronomer William Herschel noted a faint reddish hue in the core region of Andromeda. He believed Andromeda to be the nearest of all the ""great nebulae"", and based on the color and magnitude of the nebula, he incorrectly guessed that it is no more than 2,000 times the distance of Sirius. In 1850, William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, saw and made the first drawing of Andromeda's spiral structure. In 1864, William"
"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."""
"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"
"their findings dated 27 April 2007, published in the July 2007 journal ""Astronomy and Astrophysics"". At the time of discovery, it was reported to be the first potentially Earth-like planet in the habitable zone of its star and the smallest known extrasolar planet around a main-sequence star but on 21 April 2009, another planet orbiting Gliese 581, Gliese 581e, with an approximate mass of 1.9 Earth masses, was announced. In the paper, they also announced the discovery of another planet in the system, Gliese 581d, with a minimum mass of 7.7 Earth masses and a semi-major axis of 0.25 astronomical"
"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"
"NGC 681 NGC 681 (also known as the Little Sombrero Galaxy) is an intermediate spiral galaxy in the constellation of Cetus, located approximately 66.5 million light-years from Earth. The name Little Sombrero Galaxy is a reference to a much larger and earlier observed sombrero-like galaxy designated M104, or the Sombrero Galaxy. NGC 681 was discovered by the German-born British astronomer William Herschel on 28 November 1785 and was later also observed by William's son, John Herschel. John Louis Emil Dreyer, compiler of the first ""New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars"", described NGC 681 as being a ""pretty"
"spiral pattern which is asymmetrical. NGC 681 NGC 681 (also known as the Little Sombrero Galaxy) is an intermediate spiral galaxy in the constellation of Cetus, located approximately 66.5 million light-years from Earth. The name Little Sombrero Galaxy is a reference to a much larger and earlier observed sombrero-like galaxy designated M104, or the Sombrero Galaxy. NGC 681 was discovered by the German-born British astronomer William Herschel on 28 November 1785 and was later also observed by William's son, John Herschel. John Louis Emil Dreyer, compiler of the first ""New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars"", described NGC"