Surveyor of the skies
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2011
Summary
On the occasion of William herschel’s election to the Royal Society on 7 December 1781, his friend William Watson presented him with a copy of Charles Messier’s ‘Catalogue of nebulae and star clusters’, the now famous list of 103 objects which appeared in the Connaissance des Temps for 1784.
At the time, Herschel was preparing to embark on his third survey of the heavens. The first, carried out in the years before 1779, was a survey of all stars of magnitude 4 or brighter, examined with a 7-foot reflector of 4.5-inch aperture. The second survey had begun in August 1779, and was an examination of all stars brighter than magnitude 8 with a 7-foot reflector of 6.2-inch aperture. The primary result of that survey was the compilation of a catalogue of double and multiple stars, numbering 269 in all, which was due to be published in the Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions early in 1782. An unexpected byproduct of the survey had been Herschel’s discovery of the planet Uranus, the event which transformed Herschel into a professional astronomer of world renown.
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- Information
- The Complete Guide to the Herschel ObjectsSir William Herschel's Star Clusters, Nebulae and Galaxies, pp. 24 - 31Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011