Discoverers of the Universe: William and Caroline Herschel
PRINCETON UNIV. PRESS: 2011. 272 PP. $29.95/£20.95
There are many evocative place names in astronomy, such as Greenwich, Mount Wilson, Mauna Kea and La Palma. The town of Slough, located 20 or so miles to the west of London, is not one of them, even though it was once home to the world's biggest telescope — a 40-foot reflector with a 4-foot mirror built by William Herschel. The German-born astronomer had moved to the town at the behest of King George the Third to become astronomer to the court at Windsor. At the time astronomers were mostly interested in the Solar System, and the stars provided a backdrop against which the planets and the occasional comet moved. Herschel, however, had bigger ideas, and with the help of his sister Caroline, he embarked on a series of heroic observing missions that looked far beyond the planets in an effort to understand the universe at large. The fascinating story of how the Herschels ventured to Slough and beyond is told well in this book written for the general reader by Michael Hoskin, a retired historian of astronomy who published his first work on William Herschel back in 1959.
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