William Herschel's First Discovery Of Astronomy

I selected Astronomy: Discovery of Uranus by William Herschel in 1781. William Herschel was a astronomer at heart. It’s interesting to know that he was a musician and always had a passion in astronomy. His discovery started by scouring the sky with his sister and noticed a small object that over the course of time kept moving. His observation and curiosity started to question what that object could be. He first thought he had discovered a comet. He was determined to figure out what it was and this lead to further observation which revealed that what he saw was a planet. Mr. Herschel was so passionate to the incredible world of astronomy that he began his own sky survey of his own. He would look through his telescope and was able to observe

The discovery of Uranus is quite interesting. William Herschel discovered Uranus one day while he was admiring the stars in the sky in 1781. He noticed that one of these stars happened to be quite different than the other ones. He began is research there. His motivation came from the difference in the star from the other ones. Plus, he had built his telescope himself and I am sure he needed many reasons to use it!

William Herschel was an astronomer who created the first telescope. He spent nine years surveying the sky and investigating double stars. His discoveries motivated him to create bigger and stronger telescopes. In 1779 Herschel set out to survey all of the stars in heaven down to the eighth magnitude. Using his 7 foot telescope he set out to isolate as many double stars as he could. It was during this research in March of 1781 when he realized that one celestial body he had observed was not a star, but a planet, Uranus. This was the first planet to be discovered since antiquity and Herschel became famous overnight.

Until Johannes Kepler discovered that the planets in our solar system orbit our sun, this is known as heliocentric. At the same time Kepler was making these detailed recordings Galileo Galilei improved the design and magnification of the telescope. With this improvement Galileo was able to see and record the craters of the moon, phases of Venus, the moons of Jupiter, and sunspots. Along with these discoveries he was also able to theorize that light takes a certain amount of time to travel from one spot to the next as either a wave or a particle, traveling in a measurable uniform speed. Another very significant discovery he proposed was that all objects, no matter the size, density, or shape, fall at the same rate of acceleration. With the inspiration of Galileos discoveries, Kepler was able to design a telescope that would become standard in astronomical

Johannes Kepler was one of the key figures in the Scientific Revolution. Despite him not as well-known as that of his predecessors, Kepler’s discoveries laid the foundation for future discoveries and advancements in the field of astronomy we have today.

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

To explain my issue I'll tell about Hipparchus. Hipparchus lived and worked at Rhodes around 160 BC. Hipparchus investigations is what made astronomers discover more knowledge about the universe. He discovered the principle fixed stars, which made a special value to future astronomers.

William Herschel is remembered as a great musician and astronomer of the late 1700’s. He is especially known for his discovery of Uranus in 1781. But with such limited technology, how was he able to make such a discovery? Well Herschel was a builder and seller of telescopes. Building off on Newton’s discovery that in a telescope “different colours, as they [pass] through the objective lens at the upper end of the tube, [are] bent (‘refracted’) by slightly different amounts and… [come] to a focus at slightly different distances from the objective” (Hoskin) creating an unclear, and distorted image. Herschel was able to fix this problem and create a telescope that would create a perfectly clear image. His solution was to “replace the lens [with]

Joseph Banks said: “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 of our Solar System" (4). So, because other astronomers chose to take a look at what William Herschel found and was saying that it was a comet. They chose to look at it, and came to the conclusion that it was a planet and not a comet. William Herschel ended up being known as the astronomer that found a new planet in our Solar system all because other astronomers decided to take a look at it and ended up coming to the conclusion that it was a planet and not a

William Herschel discovered the seventh planet from the sun, Uranus. This was the first planet discovered using a telescope. William Herschel started to question if Uranus was a planet or a star while looking at Uranus. From using a telescope, William Herschel was able to tell that Uranus was a planet and not a star. Previous astronomers thought that Uranus was a star and not a planet because they didn’t use a telescope. William Herschel named the planet Georgium Sidus (“Georgian Planet”) after the King of England. There was another astronomer named Johann Bode, who wanted to name the planet “Uranus” after an Olympian god of the heavens. By the 1950’s, the planet’s name was accepted as Uranus. The discovery of Uranus relates to the scientific

William Herschel’s discovery of Uranus was the first “discovery…to be made in modern times…and also the first to be made by telescope”. While looking through the telescope, William “noticed

Herschel asked many questions while discovering Uranus. To start, he questioned space in general. He started investigating with his telescope to discover more than just the earth. He also had questions about the comet he discovered.

On the night of March 13, 1781, a British astronomer William Herschel was observing the sky. He moved his telescope from one star to another, looking for two stars that were close together that made it seem like one star. That was when he stopped on something unexpected. It was not a point of light, but a fuzzy disk. At first glance he thought it was a comet. He observed it over the next several days and discovered something spectacular.

In 1789 William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus.[1,2,3,4,5] However, when he first stumbled upon it, he thought it was a comet. Based on what was then known about comets, it was determined that it was too far away from the sun and moving too slow to be a comet. Upon closer investigation, he discovered that it was indeed a planet. Interestingly enough, the only reason he was able to perform deeper investigation was that he was using a telescope.

The discovery of Uranus in March of 1781 by William Herschel marked a pivotal point in history. It was the first planet in the modern era to be discovered. Previously, the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn were all discovered by the Romans and Greeks. Earth was not considered a planet at that time because it was believed that everything revolved around Earth. Herschel used the previous works of other astronomers, namely John Flamsteed, who thought that Uranus was just a part of a constellation which he cataloged as the star 34 Tauri. This discovery was the first planet identified by the use of a telescope. Since Uranus is difficult to see with the naked eye it was wondered if Uranus was a comet, star, or a planet. Many did