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Why Is Uranus Important To Herschel?

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William Herschel found Uranus on March 13, 1781. This was a big deal to him and his career. As stated in a document I found “Uranus was important for Herschel because its discovery was a passport to royal patronage, a pension of 200 pounds per annum, and a substantial support for his investigations of the construction of the sidereal heavens”. Herschel used a telescope which no one found would really work and the thought of one working was unimaginable. Some small ones were in use by scientist but Herschel wanted to develop a more powerful one that everyone would know would work better.

His motivation was for people to use his telescope and his work was looking for double stars, and in proving that it worked Herschel found what looked to be a slow moving comet that was later called Uranus on March 13, 1781. He wrote “’Looking at a star in the quartile between Aurigas right foot and the left foot of Castor I discover’d a Comet. It was at the distance of almost 2/3 of my field of view from a small telescope star which followed it and seemed to have the same declination.”’ He then looked again 4 days later and to himself that confirmed it was a …show more content…

There one notice was that the comet had no tail or beard and that it was larger in body then comets. Herschel continued to study what was still yet to be known as Uranus well into April. No one still believed that his new powerful telescope was able to read the measurements correctly. However one man by the name of Nevil Maskelyne was convinced it was either a comet or a new plant. Because of Herschel’s findings people started to ask questions. For example they question his findings because when he first discovered it the comet was moving towards earth and now in June it was slowly moving away from earth. The more Herschel was able to print and spread the news the more foreign scientist started to believe him and were impressed that he noticed such a

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