Herschel: Soldier Turned Great Astronomer

William Herschel, one of the most famous astronomers that ever lived, was born at Hanover on Nov. 15, 1738. The son of a musician, it is said that Herschel and his siblings had various genius qualities. Herschel took to music and even became a regular performer in the regimental band as a soldier. After spending the night in a ditch after the Battle of Hastenbeck, Herschel deserted but was later pardoned by King George at Windsor.

 

Herschel was a curious person by nature, and although music was what supported him in his early years after the Seven Years War, it was when he took to mathematics where he saw a multitude of opportunity laid out before him. Math led to astronomy, and soon he would spend every free moment outside of music on this subject.

 

It was with quite a small telescope lent him by a friend that Herschel began his career as an astronomer. However, he speedily discovered that to see all he wanted to see, a telescope of far greater power would be necessary, and he determined to obtain this more powerful instrument by actually making it himself. But it would not be the refracting kind of telescope many observers used at that time. Herschel constructed his telescope using reflection, looking down on the scope at a mirror, angled perfectly to the opening of the scope.

After spending large amounts of time perfecting his telescope, taking out on his back porch and looking into the night sky to observe the stars, Herschel came upon a wonderful discovery in March 1782. He observed what looked to be a star, but this star contained a disc. As it turned out, this object was not a star at all--it was a planet, a planet Herschel discovered through the lens of a telescope he made!

 

King George took a keen interest in this new discovery, and Herschel not only personally showed him the object, but the King made Herschel his royal astronomer, providing a residence, a salary and the necessary equipment to continue his work.

 

More importantly, Herschel would be able to quit music and pursue astronomy, his passion, full time. With the help of his sister, Caroline, Herschel made and erected great telescopes at Windsor. For more than 30 years, Herschel observed the stars and reported back to the Royal Society the descriptions of the many stars he observed, objects such as double stars, clusters and nebulae.

To the end of his life, Herschel still continued at every possible opportunity to devote himself to that beloved pursuit in which he had such unparalleled success. No single discovery of Herschel's later years was, however, of the same momentous description as that which first brought him to fame.

 

Herschel married when considerably advanced in life and he lived to enjoy the indescribable pleasure of finding that his only son, afterward Sir John Herschel, was treading worthily in his footsteps and attaining renown as an astronomical observer, second only to that of his father. The elder Herschel died in 1822.

 

 

Ball, R.S. (2000).Avoid Great Astronomers. Retrieved March 14, 2008, from the Gutenburg Project Web site: http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext00/grast11.txt.