Uranus Double Star

In March of 1781 William Herschel, a musician and amateur astronomer discovered what would eventually be called “Uranus.” He discovered what he initially thought was a comet, while looking for what he called double stars. He ended up finding Uranus as it passed by one of the stars he was looking at. He recorded is in a journal, and after a few days looked for it again. He was able to see that it was moving and that it appeared to have an orbit. He contacted some friends of his that were astronomers and gave them the work that had done and wanted to them to explore it further than he could. They ended up finding the same thing and also classifying it as a comet, probably a comet called 1770, and congratulating him on his discovery. It wasn’t

The discovery of Uranus by William Herschel in 1781 was a surprise to the professional astronomers of the day. William was an amateur astronomer and he made his own telescopes. He was looking at the night sky and he was looking at what others had noted was another star. With his better equipment, he could see that it was not a star but a planet. He wanted to name the planet after King George III of England. It was decided that is was going to be named after the Greek gods. It got the name of Uranus who was the father of Saturn according to mythology. It took a few years for that name to stick but when it did, the rest was history. William did get a paid as a professional astronomer after his discovery. That is good advice for all of us: Do

William Herschel was a musician and an astronomer. The motivation that drove William Herschel to the discovery of Uranus was his obsession with astronomy and the heavens. He charted the stars with a telescope he built himself, he then discovered a “comet” which really was the planet Uranus, but he initially didn’t realize it. He noticed the “comet” had moved and decided that his annotations on the position of the “comet” had been written down incorrectly. Herschel wanted to know the dimensions, and position of the “comet”. He carefully measured the location and diameter of the comet for some time and discovered its journey as parallax to “our side of the sun” on a daily basis. In 1782 Herschel finally called the comet his planet. The knowledge

Herschel then began to ask questions. He would ask himself “why is that star different from all of the others. That was his original question that got him going on his experiment. He was determined to find out what was different about that star. He then began to ask questions such as “Does it move? How big is it? Does it rotate

Frederick William Herschel was a British astronomer and composer. In 1774 he constructed his first telescope with which he spent the next 9 years studying the sky. After the completion of several catalogues, on March 13, 1781, he made an amazing discovery. The planet Uranus. This was an extraordinary discovery, and because of it, Herschel was made Court Astronomer by King George the Third, which was indeed a great honor. Later on he became the first President of the Royal Astronomer Society, in 1820. One of the key people leading to his Astronomy breakthroughs was Reverend John Michell, who was making ground-breaking views on astronomy and the construction of telescopes. Michell and Herschel met, as Herschel was a composer, and Michell was

William Herschel had a telescope and he loved searching the universe anything. He also had a sister that also searched the galaxies and enjoyed gazing into the night sky with a new perspective. On the night of Tuesday March 13, 1781 Herschel saw Uranus for the first time, even though he didn’t know it, yet. According to the article “Managing Expectations” written by Krupp he informs us that the first-time William saw Uranus he actually thought it was a comet. “Uranus was the first new planet to be found since antiquity, but at the outset it was not at all clear that a new world had been spotten. Herschel’s telescope provided the world’s best view of the new object, but even Herschel thought he had discovered a comet. (Krupp)” Herschel had to

William Herschel was a builder of telescopes. He made them better and sold them for profit. However, his motivation for making better telescopes was not profit, it was to answer his questions about space. When he looked into space through a telescope he could see that there was more that he wanted to see. It all started when he noticed a spot on Orion’s sword. William spent a lot of time improving telescopes so that he could see deeper into space. William Herschel discovered what we now know as the planet Uranus. He originally thought it was a comet. His quest to learn more about space lead him to make improvements on telescopes. He relied on the knowledge of others to help him do this. His brother often helped him with the mechanical

The discovery of Uranus was a startling observation. It is possible that people had seen Uranus prior to 1781, but none had realized what exactly they were seeing – most assumed it was a star. William Herschel is credited for the discovery of Uranus, but when he observed it through his telescope, he didn’t think it was a planet either. He hypothesized that it was a comet, because it was moving too fast to be a star. It wasn’t until his observations were peer reviewed, by other astronomers who studied it and found that its orbit was nearly circular. This lead them to classify it as a planet. At the time of the discovery, the original model of the solar system was only five planets (plus the sun, and the moon). The known planets had been observed

The discovery of Uranus by William Herschel in 1781 was important because it was the first planet to be discovered in a long time. It all started with Herschel’s desire for a better telescope. “Before long, with the help of his brother Alexander and sister Caroline, he was building the best telescopes in the world and seeing farther and farther into space”(Ruskin, 2000). Then one day he saw a large object blocking his view. He first thought it was a comet. So he sent his findings to professional astronomers to get their feedback. And finally it was concluded that it was a planet. Herschel became famous for his discovery. I learned from this story that anyone can do anything if they put their mind to it. Herschel wasn’t even an official astronomer.

Out of all of the discoveries I choose to do my research on the discovery of Uranus by William Herschel in 1781. Uranus was actually the first planet to be discovered since the beginning of the recorded history. Around this time the only planets that was recorded were the 5 that could be seen by the naked eye. William Herschel was a musician who was fascinated by astronomy and study many books about the subject. He was very different from other astronomers because he wasn’t interested in calculating planets orbits or charting down start positions, he enjoyed observing the stars, moons, and Sun. He also believed in extra-terrestrial intelligent life or in other words aliens. In this time period large telescopes weren’t available so Herschel

There was much debate about what the name of the planet would be. Herschel wanted to name the planet after King George III. Others suggested that he named the planet after himself, since he was the one to discover it. Astronomers finally settled on naming it Uranus, after an ancient Greek God.

In 1781 William Herschel, discovered the planet we know today as Uranus. Herschel, who had been raised in a musical family, was an amateur astronomer who enjoyed charting the sky in sections each night. Herschel used his skills in music to fund his passions for astronomy and building telescopes. Through his nightly charting, Herschel discovered Uranus. Initially, Herschel thought it was a comet because of its slightly askew shape, however upon further exploration he found it to be a planet. Herschel confirmed his discovery by contacting Nevil Maskelyne. Maskelyne was the astronomer royal. Herschel named the planet ‘Georgium Sidus’ after King George III. France would not use the name, calling the

William Herschel was a German-born Englishman who, at first was a musician and later developed a huge passion for the stars (Redd). “On March 13, 1781, Herschel noticed a small object that, over the course of several nights, was slowly moving across the sky” (Redd). At first, Herschel believed the small object to be a comet, but later found that it was actually a planet! He observed how, even though the Earth was moving away from the object, later to be called the planet Uranus, it seemed to be getting larger, reaffirming his beliefs that the object discovered was a comet. Herschel reported his findings and how he came to discover the “comet” to the Royal Society of London which was published in their paper on April 26, 1781. In it he said,

Two men named John Coach Adams and Urbain Le Verrier separately worked on the calculations of Uranus’s orbit and of a possible near orbiting planet. Adams was the first person to realize that Uranus’s orbit was more elliptical than circular and that the other planet would be located at double the distance of Uranus. He tried to take his work to George Airy, Astronomer Royal and the Head of the Royal Greenwich Observatory. But Airy rebuffed him. A little while later Le Verrier s similar calculations reached Airy. Airy took a liking to Le Verrier’s work and convinced a man named James Challis of the Cambridge Observatory to head the only

In 1609, Galileo Galilei, using “spyglass” which allowed one to see things closer than they appeared, made an early version of the telescope. With it, he observed the skies in a way no one had before. He discovered the moon isn’t perfectly globular, it has craters, the Sun has sunspots, Venus orbits the Sun (contrary to widespread belief in his time), and then he observed four “stars” around Jupiter (“Our Solar System”). Within