Hi Marek,
Sounds like you are having a great trip. I visited the William
Herschel museum in Bath this April when I had a free afternoon at the
end of a seminar trip. It was a remarkable experience to visit the
same house where Herschel had lived in at the time he first started
making telescopes, to be able to stand on the very spot where he
discovered Uranus, and to see my own reflection in a mirror that had
been hand figured by Willliam himself.
I found a book at the museum that I would highly recommend to anyone
who is working through the Herschel lists,. It is called the "The
Herschel Chronicle: The Life Story of Willliam Herschel and His
Sister Caroline Herschel" and was originally put together byWilliam
Herschel's granddaughter (Constance Lubbock). The book is a
wonderful chronicle of her grandfather and great aunt's life,
including lots of original correspondence, copies of letters, and
excerpts from papers reporting his discoveries. You can read in
William's own words for example, his description of the discover of
Uranus (originally thought to be a comet). Or the text of the letter
that Herschel subsequently received from Messier in France,
complementing him on finding something that was so hard to detect as
a non stellar object, and asking for additional details of his
equipment and techniques. I read the history virtually straight
through on the plane trip back from England, and found the story of
Herschel's career to be an incredible tale of talent, scientific
curiousity, amateur telescope making, obsessive observing, aperture
fever, rise to fame, burdens of success, and remarkable insights and
discoveries. The book has long been out of print, but was recently
republished by the William Herschel Society, along with a second book
called the "Memoirs of Caroline Herschel" that was put together by
John Herschel's wife. (see
http://www.williamherschel.org.uk/publications.htm).
I was thrilled to find both books in the bookshop at the Museum.
Unfortunately the museum did not take credit cards, I did not have
enough English currency to buy them (30 and 12 British pounds). As a
sign of how the Herschel museum is run as a labor of love however,
the proprieter told me to just go ahead and take the books with me
when I left. "Send me a check when you get back to the States." I
did of course, and they made great reading on the way home.
Two small points of Herschel trivia related to recent posts to TAC:
Mark Wagner wrote back in August:
>Last night at Montebello several of us looked at Uranus and Neptune
>while waiting for Mars to climb into steadier skies. I mentioned
>that Uranus is a naked eye object, although down in the soup to the
>east from our location it would be very difficult. The views
>through telescopes led a few observers to question my remark, and
>indeed Uranus did look pretty dim. But today, after a bit of
>browsing web-pages, I find its magnitude listed anywhere from mag
>5.2 to 5.8, challenging from Montebello.
>When I mentioned the planet is naked-eye, a discussion ensued
>regarding the planet's discovery. Who first noticed it? Well, it
>was Carolyn Herschel and her brother William, on March 13, 1781
The planet was discovered in the backyard of the Bath house, but
Caroline actually wasn't there at the time. The Herschels were just
moving back into the house, and Caroline was still winding up affairs
in the other house the night that William first saw Uranus as a
clearly nonstellar object while looking for tight double stars
(part of a systematic plan to try to measure parallaxes and distances
in the universe). His hand made telescopes and eyepieces were much
better than anything available at the time, and his discovery report
for Uranus says he observed the object using magnifications of 227,
460, 932, 1536, 2010, etc
Marek wrote:
>
>Immediately adjacent to the workshop was the garden where Uranus was
>discovered. How wonderful to stand in the very spot! It was much
>like visiting the outcrops where the early geologists made their
>discoveries. Not only that, but Herschel discovered infrared
>radiation here, too. Amazing.
Herschel's discovery of a new planet in the Solar System brought him
nearly instant fame, and within a year he had moved out of the house
in Bath to accept a position as the King's astronomer. His discovery
of infrared radiation was made 18 years later, when he was living in
Slough. His curiousity, insight, and energy was amazing, especially
when you read how much of his time was actually spent with official
correspondence, making mirrors and telescopes for famous customers,
and giving star parties for the King's family and guests once he
became the King's astronomer. His sister Caroline was a huge help in
all of the work, and she also made a number of important
astronomical discoveries of her own during the many years they lived
at Slough.
David Kingsley