Invention Timeline - Sir William Herschel, German Astronomer; Discovered Uranus
b. November 15, 1738 and d. August 25, 1822
German astronomer in England. In 1781 he discovered a new world which he names Georgian Star, but generally called Herscal or Uranus, March 13, 1781. Afterwards he discovered six moons, belonging to his new planet. His largest telescope was forty feet long, erected at Slough and ready for use August 28, 1789. He was the virtual founder of sidereal science. He discovered more than eight hundered double stars, measuring their “angles of position” by means of his “revolving wire micrometer,” and their angular distances apart with his “lamp micrometer.” In 1774 he first saw Saturn through a five-foot reflecting telescope made by his own hands. As an astronomer he was surpassed by no one of the age; and the depth of his scientific researches and the extent of his observations rendered him, perhaps, second only to the immortal Newton. He was also a musician and in 1766 he was an organist at Halifax.
“So, late descry’d by Herschel’s piercing sight,
Hang the bright squadrons of the twinkling Night;
Ten thousand marshal’d stars, a silver zone,
Effuse their blended lustres round her throne;
Suns call to suns, in lucid clouds conspire,
And light exterior skies with golden fire;
Resistless rolls the illimitable sphere,
And one great circle forms the unmeasured year.
—Botanic Garden: Dr. Darwin
