HERSCHEL, Sir WILLIAm (1738-1822). An eminent German-English astronomer, horn at Hanover, Germany, November 15, 1738. The son of a musician, he was educated specially as a professional musician. In 1757 lie went. to Eng land. where he became a teacher of music in the town of Leeds. from which he went to Halifax as organist. and subsequently (1766) in the same capacity to Bath. Here he would seem to have first turned his attention to astronomy. Want ing a telescope. and unable to afford a reflector. he made one for himself—a Newtonian. of five feet focal length—and with this applied himself to study the heavens. In 1741 he made his first discovery, a new planet. which at first he took for a comet. It. was detected by an exhaustive proe ess of surveying the heavens, which Herschel was the first to follow, taking the stars in regular series, and examining them in all their groups through the same instrument. The result of his discovery was his appointment to be private astronomer to George III.. with a salary of f200 a year. lie then went to live at Slough. near Windsor. where. assisted by his sister Caro line (q.v.), he eontinued his researches. Tle was knighted by George III., and made a D.C.L. by the University of Oxford; he became rich, partly through his xvife's jointure, and partly through selling mirrors for retleeting telescopes, lie died at Slough, Anost 25. 1822.
Herschel contributed sixty-mne papers te• the PhileSlIphiCIII bet \\veil the years 1780 and 1815, and to the first volume of .1/c the 1,10,101,1in:1 fy he vont ributed a paper, t he Places of 115 New 1 Mulde Stars." He greatly added to our knowledge of the solar system; he discovered Uranus and six satellites, and two satellites of Saturn. Besides this, he
determined the period of rotation of Saturn and that of Venus, the existence of the motions of binary stars, the first revelation Of systems be sides I Mil. fleet light on the Milky Way and the constitution and, in fact, was the first to give the human mind any con ception of the immensity of the universe. When in 1780 he began his researches, less than 150 nelm•e were ktamn, but as a result of his obser vations the number increased to nearly 2500, and through him the nebula. acquired a new impor tance in the universe. Ile advanced. in the earlier period of his researches. the theory that the were dusters of stars, the component stars being too faint, on necount of their immense distance, fo be seen separately. For the expla nation I if some of the nebulae, among them the nebula of Orion, he, however, reverted to the old theory, that the were masses composed of a shining fluid of a nature unknown to us. llis catalogue of lb stars. nebula., etc., and tables I if the comparative brightness of stars. and his researches in regard to light and heat, would of themselves entitle him to the first rank as an astronomer and physicist. Ile erected a monster reflecting telescope, as it was then considered, of -10 feet focal length and .1-foot apertures. It was begun in 1785 and finished in 1789, on August 28th of which year he, by means of it, the sixth satellite of Saturn, and on the 17th of September a seventh. Consult Holden, Sir Wil liam Wray& 1: flis Life and Works (New York, 1881 ) .