Caption: William Herschel (1738--1822), soldier, composer, conductor, astronomer. Herschel was the greatest observational astronomer of the 18th century and early 19th century and one of the great visionaries of astronomy.
Features:
It was during the course of this program that he discovered Uranus on 1781 Mar13 using his small reflector (primary diameter 6.2 inches ≅ 15.75 cm) (No-399). Uranus is the first planet discovered in historical times (c.3000 BCE--). The prehistorical planets (i.e., Mercury ☿, Venus ♀, Mars ♂, Jupiter ♃, Saturn ♄) were all known since indefinitely way back in prehistory (--c.3000 BCE.
Herschel called new planet Georgium Sidus, but outside his adopted homeland (i.e., Great Britain) that was considered too Britannic and the world settled eventually on Uranus.
Credit/Permission: Lemuel Francis Abbott (c.1760--1802),
1785
(uploaded to Wikipedia
by User:%E9%9C%A7%E6%9C%A8%E8%AB%92%E4%BA%8C,
2005) /
Public domain.
Image link: Wikipedia:
File:William Herschel01.jpg.
Local file: local link: william_herschel.html.
File: Astronomer file:
william_herschel.html.