November 9, 2010 #111 – An interesting Letter, about the Discovery of Uranus by William Hershel.

There are a lot of surprises in some of the old astronomical journals that pop up as you read them closely.  As I was reading the 1888, “Journal of the Liverpool Astronomical Society Vol. VI”, on Google Books, there were two letters that caught my eye. The first by William Herschel on the methods he used to discover the planet Uranus.  He goes to some lengths in the narrative to explain the pains-taking work he put into his observations.

The second letter, published the next month, is about a statement that Caroline Herschel, his sister, made in late life.  This I had not read about before, though it may be that I missed it in my astronomy readings in the past. She states that,  “It was her eye that made the discovery”.(Click to read)



Clear Sky - Rich