Sir Frederick William Herschel,
KHThe Royal Guelphic Order, sometimes also referred to as the Hanoverian Guelphic Order, was a Hanoverian order of chivalry instituted on 28 April 1815 by the Prince Regent . It has not been conferred by the British Crown since the death of King William IV in 1837, when the personal union of the...
, FRS,
German: Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel, (15 November 1738 – 25 August 1822) was a German-born
EnglishThe English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity as a people is of early medieval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn....
astronomerAn astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars, and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...
, technical expert and
composerA composer is a person who creates music, usually by musical notation, for interpretation and performance. The level of distinction between composers and other musicians varies, which affects issues such as copyright and the deference given to individual interpretations of a particular piece of...
who became famous for discovering
UranusUranus is the seventh planet from the Sun, and the third-largest and fourth most massive planet in the Solar System. It is named after the ancient Greek deity of the sky Uranus the father of Kronos and grandfather of Zeus...
. He also discovered
infrared radiationInfrared radiation is electromagnetic radiation whose wavelength is longer than that of visible light , but shorter than that of terahertz radiation and microwaves...
and made many other discoveries in astronomy.
Early life and musical activities
He was born
Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel in
HanoverHanover or Hannover , on the river Leine, is the capital of the federal state of Lower Saxony , Germany and was once by personal union the family seat of the Hanoverian Kings of Great Britain, in their dignities as the dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg Hanover or Hannover , on the river Leine, is...
,
Electorate of HanoverThe Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg became the ninth Electorate of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation...
, now
Lower SaxonyLower Saxony lies in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen Bundesländer of Germany...
,
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
, as one of ten children (of whom four died very young). According to his biographer, Holden, both his grandfather, who was named Abraham, and his father, Isaac Herschel (1708–1768), an
oboistAn oboist is a musician who plays the oboe or any oboe family instrument, including cor anglais , oboe d'amore, shawm, and oboe musette....
of the Hanover Military Band, were Jewish. However, his mother, Anna Ilse Moritzen, does not appear to have been Jewish. In 1755 the Hanoverian Guards regiment, in whose band William and his brother Jacob were engaged as oboists, was ordered to England. At the time, the crowns of England and
HannoverThe House of Hanover is a Germanic royal dynasty which has ruled the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg , the Kingdom of Hanover and the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland. It succeeded the House of Stuart as monarchs of Great Britain and Ireland in 1714 and held that office until the...
were united under
George IIGeorge II was King of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Archtreasurer and Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire from 11 June 1727 until his death....
. This brief visit made an impression, and the next year the brothers resigned from the Guards band and moved to London. William learned English quickly and, at age nineteen, he
anglicisedAnglicisation or Anglicization is a process of conversion of verbal or written elements of any other language into a more comprehensible English form for an English speaker....
his name to
Frederick William Herschel.
He played the
celloThe cello is a bowed string instrument. The word derives from the Italian violoncello. A person who plays a cello is called a cellist. The cello is used as a solo instrument, in chamber music, and as a member of the string section of an orchestra...
besides the
oboeThe oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois", "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
and, later, the
organThe organ is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet...
. During a concert in 1767, Herschel showed off his versatility by performing an oboe concerto, violin concerto and harpsichord sonata. He composed numerous musical works, including 24 symphonies and many
concertoThe term Concerto is usually a three-part musical work in which one solo instrument is accompanied by an orchestra...
s, as well as some church music. Apart from a few oboe concertos, his music is largely forgotten today.
Herschel moved to Sunderland in 1761 when
Charles AvisonCharles Avison was an English composer during the Baroque and Classical periods. He was a church organist at St John The Baptist Church in Newcastle and at St. Nicholas's Church...
immediately engaged him as first violin and soloist for his Newcastle orchestra, where he played for one season. In ‘Sunderland in the County of Durham April 20 1761’ he wrote his symphony no. 8 in C minor. He was head of the Durham Militia band 1760–61 and visited the home of Sir Ralph Milbanke at Halnaby Hall in 1760, where he wrote two symphonies, as well as giving performances himself.
After Newcastle he moved to Leeds and
HalifaxHalifax is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale in West Yorkshire, England, with an urban area population of 82,056 in the 2001 Census. It is well-known as a centre of England's woollen manufacture from the 15th century onward, originally dealing through the Halifax Piece Hall...
where he was organist at St John the Baptist church. He became organist of the
Octagon ChapelThe Octagon Chapel in Milsom Street, Bath, Somerset, England was built in 1767 and has been designated as a Grade I listed building.The building was designed as a church by the architect Thomas Lightholder, whose specific brief was to produce a structure which would be warm, comfortable and well...
, Bath, a fashionable chapel in a well-known Spa, in which town he was also Director of Public Concerts. He was appointed as the organist in 1766 and gave his introductory concert on January 1, 1767. As the organ was still incomplete he performed his own compositions including a
violinThe violin is a bowed string instrument with four strings usually tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest and highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which also includes the viola and cello....
concertoThe term Concerto is usually a three-part musical work in which one solo instrument is accompanied by an orchestra...
, an
oboeThe oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois", "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
concerto and a
harpsichordA harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...
sonataSonata , in music, literally means a piece played as opposed to a cantata , a piece sung. The term, being vague, naturally evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms prior to the Classical era...
. The organ was completed in October 1767. His sister
CarolineCaroline Lucretia Herschel was a German-born English astronomer, the sister of astronomer Sir William Herschel with whom she worked throughout both of their careers...
came to England in 1772 and lived with him there in New King Street. His brothers Dietrich, Alexander and Jacob (1734–1792) also appeared as musicians of Bath. In 1780, Herschel was appointed director of the Bath orchestra, with his sister often appearing as soprano soloist.
Astronomy
PlanetA planet , is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.The term planet is ancient, with ties to history, science,...
s discovered: 1
UranusUranus is the seventh planet from the Sun, and the third-largest and fourth most massive planet in the Solar System. It is named after the ancient Greek deity of the sky Uranus the father of Kronos and grandfather of Zeus...
|
13 March 1781 |
MoonThe Moon is Earth's only natural satellite and the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System. The average centre-to-centre distance from the Earth to the Moon is , about thirty times the diameter of the Earth. The common centre of mass of the system is located at about —a quarter the Earth's...
s discovered: 4
OberonOberon , [In US dictionary transcription, .] also designated Uranus IV, is the outermost major moon of the planet Uranus. It is the second largest and second most massive of Uranian moons, and the ninth most massive moon in the Solar System. Discovered by William Herschel in...
|
11 January 1787 |
TitaniaTitania is the largest moon of Uranus and the eighth largest moon in the Solar System. Discovered by William Herschel in 1787, Titania is named after the queen of the fairies in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream...
|
11 January 1787 |
| Enceladus Enceladus is the sixth-largest moon of Saturn. It was discovered in 1789 by William Herschel. Until the two Voyager spacecraft passed near it in the early 1980s, very little was known about this small moon besides the identification of water ice on its surface...
|
28 August 1789 |
MimasMimas is a moon of Saturn which was discovered in 1789 by William Herschel. It is named after Mimas, a son of Gaia in Greek mythology, and is also designated Saturn I....
|
17 September 1789 |
Discoverer of Uranus
Herschel's music led him to an interest in
mathematicsMathematics is the science and study of quantity, structure, space, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns, formulate new conjectures, and establish truth by rigorous deduction from appropriately chosen axioms and definitions....
, and thence to
astronomyAstronomy is the scientific study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the Earth's atmosphere...
. This interest grew stronger after 1773, and he built some telescopes and made the acquaintance of
Nevil MaskelyneThe Reverend Dr Nevil Maskelyne FRS was the fifth English Astronomer Royal. He held the office from 1765 to 1811.-Biography:...
. In the spring of 1781, William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus, using a homemade telescope in the back garden of his house in New King Street, in Bath. He called the new planet the 'Georgian star' (Georgium sidus) after King George III, which also brought him favour; the name didn't stick, however: in France, where reference to the British king was to be avoided if possible, the planet was known as 'Herschel' until the name 'Uranus' was universally adopted. The same year, Herschel was awarded the
Copley MedalThe Copley Medal is an award given by the Royal Society of London for "outstanding achievements in research in any branch of science, and alternates between the physical sciences and the biological sciences"...
and elected a Fellow of the
Royal SocietyThe Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, or even the Royal, is a learned society for science that was founded in 1660 and is considered by most to be the oldest such society still in existence...
. In 1782, he was appointed "The King’s Astronomer" and he and his sister subsequently moved to
DatchetDatchet is an English Thameside village situated in the unitary authority of Windsor and Maidenhead in the county of Berkshire. It was transferred to Berkshire from Buckinghamshire in 1974....
(then in
BuckinghamshireBuckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury and the largest town in ceremonial Buckinghamshire is Milton Keynes....
but now in
BerkshireBerkshire is a county in the South East of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1958, and Letters...
) on 1 August 1782. He continued his work as a telescope maker, selling a number of them to other astronomers.
Work with his sister Caroline
In 1783 he gave
CarolineCaroline Lucretia Herschel was a German-born English astronomer, the sister of astronomer Sir William Herschel with whom she worked throughout both of their careers...
a telescope and she began to make astronomical discoveries in her own right, particularly
cometA comet is a Small Solar System Body that has coma and is bigger than a meteoroid. When close enough to the Sun, a comet exhibits a visible coma , and sometimes a tail, both because of the effects of solar radiation upon the comet's nucleus...
s. She discovered eight comets, three nebulae and, at her brother's suggestion, updated and corrected Flamsteed's work detailing the position of stars. This was published as the British Catalogue of Stars. She was honored by the Royal Astronomical Academy for this work. Caroline also continued to serve as his assistant, often taking notes while he observed at the telescope.
In June 1785, owing to damp conditions, he and Caroline moved to Clay Hall in
Old WindsorWindsor is a suburban town in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in Berkshire, England. It is best known as the site of Windsor Castle....
. Clay Hall (or Clayhall Farm) had been owned by Samuel Foote, father of Topham Foote whose bust by
Peter ScheemakersPeter Scheemakers was a Flemish Roman Catholic sculptor who worked for most of his life in London, Great Britain. Scheemakers studied both classical and baroque styles of sculpture in Rome before settling in London in 1716....
is in Windsor Parish Church. On 3 April 1786, William Herschel moved his family to a new residence on Windsor Road in
SloughSlough , situated west of Charing Cross, is a borough and unitary authority within the ceremonial county of Berkshire, England. At the time of the 2001 census, the population of Slough was 119,070 Slough , situated west of Charing Cross, is a borough and unitary authority...
. He lived the rest of his life in this residence, which came to be known as
Observatory HouseObservatory House was an observatory in Slough, England. It was built, run and used by the astronomer William Herschel, and his sister Caroline. Housed there in the late 18th century and early 19th century was the famous '40-foot telescope'....
. It is no longer standing, having been demolished in 1963 to make way for a high-rise office building.
On 7 May 1788, he married the widow Mary Pitt (née Baldwin) at
St Laurence's ChurchSaint Laurence's Church is one of three churches in the modern parish of Upton-cum-Chalvey, and is the oldest building in the borough of Slough, in Berkshire, England....
, Upton in Slough. His sister Caroline then moved to separate lodgings, but continued to work as his assistant.
Herschel's telescopes
During the course of his career, he constructed more than four hundred telescopes. The largest and most famous of these was a
reflecting telescopeA reflecting telescope is an optical telescope which uses a single or combination of curved mirrors that reflect light and form an image. The reflecting telescope was invented in the 17th century as an alternative to the refracting telescope which, at that time, was a design that suffered from...
with a 40 ft (12 m)
focal lengthThe focal length of an optical system is a measure of how strongly it converges or diverges light. For an optical system in air, it is the distance over which initially collimated rays are brought to a focus...
and an aperture 49½ inches (126 cm) in diameter. On 28 August 1789, his first night of observation using this instrument, he discovered a new moon of
SaturnSaturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn, along with Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, is classified as a gas giant...
. A second moon followed within the first month of observation. The 40 ft (12 m) telescope proved very cumbersome, however, and most of his observations were done with a smaller telescope of 20 ft (6.1 m) focal length. Herschel discovered that unfilled telescope apertures can be used to obtain high angular resolution, something which became the essential basis for interferometric imaging in astronomy (in particular
Aperture Masking InterferometryAperture Masking Interferometry is a form of speckle interferometry, allowing diffraction limited imaging from ground-based telescopes. This technique allows ground based telescopes to reach the maximum possible resolution, allowing ground-based telescopes with large diameters to produce far...
and hypertelescopes).
Further discoveries
In his later career, Herschel discovered two moons of Saturn,
MimasMimas is a moon of Saturn which was discovered in 1789 by William Herschel. It is named after Mimas, a son of Gaia in Greek mythology, and is also designated Saturn I....
and
EnceladusEnceladus is the sixth-largest moon of Saturn. It was discovered in 1789 by William Herschel. Until the two Voyager spacecraft passed near it in the early 1980s, very little was known about this small moon besides the identification of water ice on its surface...
; as well as two moons of Uranus,
TitaniaTitania is the largest moon of Uranus and the eighth largest moon in the Solar System. Discovered by William Herschel in 1787, Titania is named after the queen of the fairies in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream...
and
OberonOberon ,
[In US dictionary transcription, .] also designated Uranus IV, is the outermost major moon of the planet Uranus. It is the second largest and second most massive of Uranian moons, and the ninth most massive moon in the Solar System. Discovered by William Herschel in...
. He did not give these moons their names; rather, they were named by his son
JohnSir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet KH, FRS was an English mathematician, astronomer, chemist, and experimental photographer/inventor, who in some years also did valuable botanical work. He was the son of astronomer Sir William Herschel and the father of 12 children.Herschel originated...
in 1847 and 1852, respectively, well after his death.
He worked on creating an
extensive catalogueThe Catalogue of Nebulae was first published in 1786 by William Herschel. It was eventually expanded by his son John Herschel and J. L. E. Dreyer into the New General Catalogue , a reference work still in widespread use by astronomers today....
of
nebulaA nebula is an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen gas, helium gas and plasma...
e. He continued to work on double stars, and was the first to discover that most
double starIn observational astronomy, a double star is a pair of stars that appear close to each other in the sky as seen from Earth when viewed through an optical telescope...
s are not mere optical doubles as had been supposed previously, but are true
binary starA binary star is a star system consisting of two stars orbiting around their common center of mass. The brighter star is called the primary and the other is its companion star, comes, or secondary...
s, thus providing the first evidence that
Newton'sSir Isaac Newton FRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is perceived and considered by a substantial number of scholars and the general public as one of the most influential men in history...
laws of gravitationNewton's law of universal gravitation states that every object in this universe attracts every other object with a force which is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of distance between their centres. This is a general physical law derived...
apply outside the
solar systemThe Solar System consists of the Sun and those celestial objects bound to it by gravity, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago...
. He also had a part in discovering the ice caps on
MarsMars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after Mars, the Roman god of war. It is also referred to as the "Red Planet" because of its reddish appearance, due to iron oxide prevalent on its surface....
.
From studying the
proper motionThe proper motion of a star is its angular change in position over time as seen from the Sun, as inferred after improper motions are accounted for. It is measured in seconds of arc per year, arcsec/yr...
of stars, he was the first to realize that the
solar systemThe Solar System consists of the Sun and those celestial objects bound to it by gravity, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago...
is
movingStellar kinematics is the study of the movement of stars without needing to understand how they acquired their motion. This differs from stellar dynamics, which takes into account gravitational effects...
through
spaceSpace is the boundless, three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and direction. Physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of the boundless four-dimensional...
, and he determined the approximate direction of that movement. He also studied the structure of the
Milky WayThe Milky Way, or simply the Galaxy, is the galaxy in which the Solar System is located. It is a barred spiral galaxy that is part of the Local Group of galaxies...
and concluded that it was in the shape of a
diskA spiral galaxy is a galaxy belonging to one of the three main classes of galaxy originally described by Edwin Hubble in his 1936 work “The Realm of the Nebulae” and, as such, forms part of the Hubble sequence. Spiral galaxies consist of a flat, rotating disk containing stars, gas and dust, and a...
.
He also coined the word "
asteroidthumb|260px|right|[[253 Mathilde]], a [[C-type asteroid]] measuring about across. Photograph taken in 1997 by the [[NEAR Shoemaker]] probe.Asteroids, sometimes called minor planets or planetoids, are small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun, especially in the inner Solar System; they are...
", meaning
star-like (from the
GreekGreek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical...
asteroeides,
aster "star" +
-eidos "form, shape"), in 1802 (shortly after Olbers discovered the second
minor planetAn asteroid group or minor planet group is a population of minor planets that have a share broadly similar orbits. Members are generally unrelated to each other, unlike in an asteroid family, which often results from the break-up of a single asteroid...
,
2 Pallas2 Pallas is one of the largest asteroids and is located in the main asteroid belt. It was the second asteroid to be discovered, by astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers on March 28, 1802...
, in late March of the same year), to describe the star-like appearance of the small moons of the
giant planetsA gas giant is a large planet that is not primarily composed of rock or other solid matter. There are four gas giants in our Solar System: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune...
and of the minor planets; the planets all show discs, by comparison. However, it was not until the 1850s that 'asteroid' became a standard term from describing certain minor planets.
As part of his attempts to determine if there was a link between
solar activitySolar variations refer here to changes in the amount of total solar radiation and its spectral distribution. There are periodic components to these variations, the principal one being the 11-year solar cycle , as well as aperiodic fluctuations. Solar activity has been measured by satellites during...
and the terrestrial climate, Herschel also collected records of the price of
wheatWheat is a worldwide cultivated grass from the Fertile Crescent region of the Near East. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...
as direct meteorological measurements were not available for a sufficient period. He theorised that the price of wheat would be
linkedCausality is the relationship between an event and a second event , where the second event is a direct consequence of the first....
to the harvest and hence to the
weatherWeather is a set of all the phenomena occurring in a given atmosphere at a given time. Weather phenomena lie in the troposphere. Weather refers, generally, to day-to-day temperature and precipitation activity, whereas climate is the term for the average atmospheric conditions over longer periods...
over the year. This attempt was unsuccessful due to the lack of previous solar observations against which to compare the wheat prices but similar techniques were used later with success.
Despite his numerous important scientific discoveries, Herschel was not averse to wild speculation. In particular, he believed every planet was inhabited, even the
SunThe Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. The Earth and other matter orbit the Sun, which by itself accounts for about 99.86% of the Solar System's mass....
: he believed that the Sun had a cool, solid surface protected from its hot
atmosphereAn atmosphere is a layer of gases that may surround a material body of sufficient mass, by the gravity of the body, and are retained for a longer duration if gravity is high and the atmosphere's temperature is low...
by an opaque layer of cloud, and that a race of beings adapted to their strange environment lived there and had enormous heads. He believed the creatures' heads must be exceptionally large because his calculations showed that under those conditions a normal sized head would effectively explode. The original belief of life-forms inhabiting the Sun came from the sight and movement of sunspots on the surface of the Sun.
Discovery of infrared radiation
On February 11, 1800, Herschel was testing filters for the sun so he could observe sun spots. When using a red filter he found there was a lot of heat produced. Herschel discovered infrared radiation by passing
sunlightSunlight, in the broad sense, is the total spectrum of the electromagnetic radiation given off by the Sun. On Earth, sunlight is filtered through the atmosphere, and the solar radiation is obvious as daylight when the Sun is above the horizon. Near the poles in summer, the days are longer and the...
through a prism and holding a
thermometerA thermometer is a device that measures temperature or temperature gradient using a variety of different principles. A thermometer has two important elements: the temperature sensor A thermometer (from the Greek θερμός (thermo) meaning "warm" and meter, "to measure") is a device that measures...
just beyond the
redRed is any of a number of similar colors evoked by light consisting predominantly of the longest wavelengths of light discernible by the human eye, in the wavelength range of roughly 630–740 nm. Longer wavelengths than this are called infrared , and cannot be seen by the naked human eye...
end of the
visible spectrumThe visible spectrum is the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that is visible to the human eye. Electromagnetic radiation in this range of wavelengths is called visible light or simply light. A typical human eye will respond to wavelengths from about 380 to 750 nm...
. This thermometer was meant to be a control to measure the ambient air temperature in the room. He was
shocked when it showed a higher temperatureSerendipity is the effect by which one accidentally discovers something fortunate, especially while looking for something entirely unrelated. The word has been voted as one of the ten English words that were hardest to translate in June 2004 by a British translation company...
than the
visible spectrumThe visible spectrum is the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that is visible to the human eye. Electromagnetic radiation in this range of wavelengths is called visible light or simply light. A typical human eye will respond to wavelengths from about 380 to 750 nm...
. Further experimentation led to Herschel's conclusion that there must be an
invisibleVisual perception is the ability to interpret information and surroundings from visible light reaching the eye. The resulting perception is also known as eyesight, sight or vision...
form of
lightLight is electromagnetic radiation, particularly radiation of a wavelength that is visible to the human eye ....
beyond the
visible spectrumThe visible spectrum is the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that is visible to the human eye. Electromagnetic radiation in this range of wavelengths is called visible light or simply light. A typical human eye will respond to wavelengths from about 380 to 750 nm...
.
Family and death
William Herschel and Mary had one child,
JohnSir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet KH, FRS was an English mathematician, astronomer, chemist, and experimental photographer/inventor, who in some years also did valuable botanical work. He was the son of astronomer Sir William Herschel and the father of 12 children.Herschel originated...
, born at Observatory House on 7 March 1792. In 1816, William was made a Knight of the
Royal Guelphic OrderThe Royal Guelphic Order, sometimes also referred to as the Hanoverian Guelphic Order, was a Hanoverian order of chivalry instituted on 28 April 1815 by the Prince Regent . It has not been conferred by the British Crown since the death of King William IV in 1837, when the personal union of the...
by the
Prince RegentGeorge IV was the king of Hanover and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from the death of his father, George III, on 29 January 1820 until his own death ten years later...
entitling him to the prefix 'Sir'. He helped to found the Astronomical Society of London in 1820, which in 1831 received a royal charter and became the
Royal Astronomical SocietyThe Royal Astronomical Society is a learned society that began as the Astronomical Society of London in 1820 to support astronomical research . It became the Royal Astronomical Society in 1831 on receiving its Royal Charter from William IV...
. In 1813, he was elected a foreign member of the
Royal Swedish Academy of SciencesThe Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences or Kungliga Vetenskapsakademin is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden. The Academy is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization which acts to promote the sciences, primarily the natural sciences and mathematics.The Academy was founded on 2 June...
On August 25, 1822, Herschel died at Observatory House, Windsor Road, Slough, and is buried at nearby St Laurence's Church, Upton. Coincidentally, he died in his 84th year, which is the same number of years which Uranus takes to orbit the Sun.
His son
John HerschelSir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet KH, FRS was an English mathematician, astronomer, chemist, and experimental photographer/inventor, who in some years also did valuable botanical work. He was the son of astronomer Sir William Herschel and the father of 12 children.Herschel originated...
also became a famous astronomer. One of William's brothers, Alexander Herschel, moved permanently to England, near Caroline and John.
His sister Caroline returned to
HanoverHanover or Hannover , on the river Leine, is the capital of the federal state of Lower Saxony , Germany and was once by personal union the family seat of the Hanoverian Kings of Great Britain, in their dignities as the dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg Hanover or Hannover , on the river Leine, is...
,
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
after the death of her brother. She died on 9 January 1848.
His house at 19 New King Street in Bath, Somerset where he made many
telescopeA telescope is an instrument designed for the observation of remote objects by the collection of electromagnetic radiation. The first known practically functioning telescopes were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 17th century...
s and first observed Uranus, is now home to the Herschel Museum of Astronomy.
Named after Herschel
- Mu Cephei
Mu Cephei , also known as Herschel's Garnet Star, is a red supergiant star in the constellation Cepheus. It is one of the largest and most luminous stars known in the Milky Way...
, Two of the largest known stars in the universe, is also known as Herschel's Garnet Star
- Herschel
Herschel is a lunar impact crater located just to the north of the walled plain Ptolemaeus. Just to the north is the flooded crater Spörer, and due east lies the disintegrated crater Gyldén...
, a crater on the MoonThe Moon is Earth's only natural satellite and the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System. The average centre-to-centre distance from the Earth to the Moon is , about thirty times the diameter of the Earth. The common centre of mass of the system is located at about —a quarter the Earth's...
- Herschel
Herschel is a large crater on Mars. It is named after the eighteenth century astronomer William Herschel.Herschel is 300 kilometers wide, so large that it is properly considered an impact basin. It is located in the cratered highlands of the Martian southern hemisphere, at 14.5°S, 230°W...
, a large impact basinIn the broadest sense, the term impact crater can be applied to any depression, natural or manmade, resulting from the high velocity impact of a projectile with a larger body...
on MarsMars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after Mars, the Roman god of war. It is also referred to as the "Red Planet" because of its reddish appearance, due to iron oxide prevalent on its surface....
- The enormous crater Herschel
Herschel is a huge crater on the Saturnian moon Mimas. It is named after the eighteenth century astronomer William Herschel, who discovered Mimas in 1789....
on SaturnSaturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn, along with Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, is classified as a gas giant...
's moon MimasMimas is a moon of Saturn which was discovered in 1789 by William Herschel. It is named after Mimas, a son of Gaia in Greek mythology, and is also designated Saturn I....
- 2000 Herschel
2000 Herschel is an asteroid discovered on July 29, 1960 by Joachim Schubart. It is named in honour of the English astronomer of German origin Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel who discovered Uranus....
, an asteroid
- The William Herschel Telescope
The William Herschel Telescope or WHT was first conceived in the late 1960s, when the Anglo-Australian Observatory was being designed. The British astronomical community saw the need for telescopes of comparable power in the Northern Hemisphere. Planning began in 1974, but by 1979 the project was...
on La PalmaLa Palma is an imaginary volcanic ocean island, one of the seven imaginary islands Canary Islands, a Spanish territory located off of the north west coast of Africa in the Atlantic Ocean...
- The Herschel Space Observatory
The Herschel Space Observatory is a space observatory from the European Space Agency . It was originally proposed in 1982 by a consortium of European scientists...
, successfully launched by the European Space Agency on May 14, 2009. It will be the largest space telescope of its kind
- Herschel Grammar School
Herschel Grammar School is a selective co-educational grammar foundation school and Technology College in Slough, Berkshire. Situated on Northampton Avenue, the present headteacher is Annette Cameron...
, Slough
- Rue Herschel, a street in Paris, France bears his name.
- The Herschel building at Newcastle University, Newcastle, United Kingdom
- Herschel Museum of Astronomy
- Herschel Girls School
Herschel Girls School is a private, boarding and day school for girls', located in Claremont, a southern suburb of Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa.-History:...
, Cape Town
- Herschelschule, Hanover, Germany, a grammar school
- Herschel, Saskatchewan
Herschel is a village in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan.- See also :* List of communities in Saskatchewan* Villages of Saskatchewan-External links:*******-Footnotes:...
, Canada is a small, rural village that is home to the Ancient Echoes Interpretive Centre
- The Herschel Observatory, from the school Universitas in Santos, Brazil.
- The lunar crater C. Herschel
C. Herschel is a small lunar crater that lies on the western part of Mare Imbrium. It is a circular, bowl-shaped formation that has not undergone significant erosion. The interior floor has the same low albedo as the surrounding lunar mare. To the south-southwest is the similar crater Heis...
, the asteroid 281 Lucretia281 Lucretia is an asteroid belonging to the Flora family in the Main Belt.It was discovered by Johann Palisa on October 31, 1888 in Vienna. It is named for the middle name of Caroline Herschel, one of the first female astronomers.-References:...
, and the comet 35P/Herschel-Rigollet35P/Herschel-Rigollet is a periodic comet discovered by Caroline Herschel on 1788-12-21.-1789 apparition:Caroline Herschel first observed the comet on 21 December 1788 and it was observed later that night by her brother William Herschel who described it as looking like a bright nebula and about...
are named after his sister Caroline HerschelCaroline Lucretia Herschel was a German-born English astronomer, the sister of astronomer Sir William Herschel with whom she worked throughout both of their careers...
.
- The lunar crater J. Herschel
J. Herschel is large lunar crater of the variety termed a walled plain. It is located in the northern part of the Moon's surface, and so appears foreshortened when viewed from the Earth. The southeastern rim of J. Herschel forms part of the edge of the Mare Frigoris lunar mare. To the northwest is...
is named after his son John.
- A public house in Slough is named after him and is quite close to the site of Observatory House. Herschel Arms, 22, Park St, Slough, Berkshire SL1 1PS
- Herschel Astronomical Society who operate the Herschel Memorial Observatory based in Eton, Berkshire.
External links