He was knighted and made court astronomer by the king, with an annual pension of £200 on the condition he live near Windsor and be available whenever the king wanted to stargaze.ĭuring this time, Caroline was conducting her own “sky sweeps” and making discoveries. For his discovery, William won international fame. Uranus was the first planet discovered using a telescope. Jupiter, Saturn, and the solar system’s inner planets had been recognized for millennia since they are visible to the naked eye. Naming the new planet for the British monarch raised hackles in some other countries, so William opted for Uranus, a sky god from Greek mythology. At first he called it Georgium Sidus, Latin for “George’s star,” in honor of King George III. At first he thought it was a comet, but with further study and confirmation from colleagues, it became clear he had found a planet, one of the solar system’s ice giants. Two years later, while studying double stars (two stars that appear close together when viewed from Earth), William noted a faint object that moved slowly against background stars over several nights. “This was once the case when at the finishing of a seven-foot mirror he had not left his hands from it for 16 hours together.” By the end of 1779, having verified his designs, William was considered the foremost telescope manufacturer of his time. “My time was so much taken up with copying Music and practicing, besides attendance on my Brother when polishing, that by way of keeping him alive I was even obliged to feed him by putting the vitals by bits into his mouth,” she wrote. Caroline recalled William’s commitment to the task in her memoirs. The metal mirrors needed intense polishing since large glass mirrors were not available at the time. Eyepieces, micrometers, tubes and other parts required skilled craftsmen. Making a telescope was a team effort, as many of the components came from different sources. The following year, frustrated by the performance of his telescopes, William set out to make one of his own design. Until the Herschels, stargazing had largely been limited to the sun, moon, and planets visible to the naked eye. A working arrangement developed between the two: William made observations while Caroline did the exacting work of cataloging and calculating the locations, an important step toward the modern mathematical approach to astronomy. Caroline grew equally captivated by the night sky and absorbed her brother’s knowledge of astronomy. While continuing her musical studies and looking after the household, she worked by her brother’s side. Also an accomplished musician, she played the harpsichord and sang. She had been living a cloistered life in Hanover looking after their mother and eagerly accepted the offer, arriving in England in 1772. To manage his dual commitments to music and astronomy, William invited his 22-year-old sister, Caroline, to join him in Bath after the death of their father. ( NASA's Webb Telescope captures jaw-dropping views of the cosmos.) A giant discoveryīy the early 1770s William was studying telescope design. However great his love for music, it was no match for astronomy and his self-proclaimed mission to learn “the construction of the heavens.” These interests led to physics, then to optics, which introduced him to astronomy. He studied the relationship between acoustics and mathematics. He joined the Bath Philosophical Society, and through lectures, discussions, and readings soaked up the latest findings in science and physics. William placed himself in the thick of it. Located around 100 miles west of London, fast-growing Bath had a lively intellectual scene at the time. He found work as a music copyist, then tutored and performed until he landed a spot as church organist in Bath in 1766. But, as the Seven Years’ War with France closed in on Hanover, William fled to London, arriving in 1758 at the age of 20. William, 12 years older than his sister, learned to play the oboe, violin, and organ, and followed his father into music. He insisted on a musical education for his 10 children as a means to social advancement. Their father, Isaac, played oboe in the city’s military band, a few steps up from his own father’s position as a gardener. Their chosen profession was a long way from the humble life of the Herschel family in Hanover, Germany. With improved telescopes of William’s design, the siblings made the first systematic observations of the stars and nebulae beyond the solar system, setting the course for the modern, scientific discipline of astronomy. Until the Herschels, stargazing had largely been limited to observing the sun, moon, and planets visible to the naked eye. Whatever history lost musically, it more than gained scientifically. Brother and sister, William and Caroline Herschel left their promising musical careers to become astronomers.
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