8:11 a.m., Oct. 20, 2009----Michael Lemonick “can write brilliant stuff about anything,” said Harry Shipman, the University of Delaware's Annie Jump Cannon Professor of Physics and Astronomy, as he introduced the popular science writer and featured speaker in the Harcourt “Ace” Vernon Lecture Series on Saturday evening, Oct. 17, at the Perkins Student Center.

THIS STORY

E-mail

Print

Delicious

Digg this

Facebook

However, Lemonick, a former staff writer for TIME Magazine who now teaches at Princeton University, says his favorite topic to write about is astronomy.

And the more he learned about William Herschel when approached to write a book about the 18th-century luminary, Lemonick said, the more he learned how improbable this poor-musician-turned-astronomer's achievement was.

In fact, Herschel's discovery of the planet Uranus, and his view of the heavens -- greatly illuminated also by the work of his sister, Caroline -- would set the tone for modern astronomy.

William Herschel was from a lower-middle class family in Hanover, in what is now Germany. His father was a self-taught musician who led a military band and taught his sons to play musical instruments.

William and a brother, Jacob, ended up going to England in 1755 in a military band, as the crowns of England and Hanover were united under King George II at that time. The brothers, both oboists, liked England so much they resigned from the band and moved to London.

Although William Herschel wanted to become a composer, he was not talented enough to turn his desire into a career. He found work as a music teacher for several aristocratic families and would ride back and forth on a horse between his clients' houses at night, pondering the stars as he went, Lemonick said.

Eventually, Herschel took a position as an organist and choirmaster in Bath, the most fashionable town outside of London in those days, and became well known. He brought his younger sister, Caroline, to England to be his housekeeper and taught her to sing.

He also bought a book on harmonics and began learning higher mathematics, which he eventually applied to astronomy. He was entirely self-taught in the field, which at the time focused chiefly on navigation and for testing Newton's theories about the orbits of comets.

“Herschel wanted to understand the universe as a whole,” Lemonick said. “He wanted to know what he was looking at and what it meant, which was a radical idea back then.”

Herschel turned his home into somewhat of “a telescope-making factory,” Lemonick said, with the assistance of another brother, Alexander, who was a clockmaker.

Using a seven-foot-long telescope with a seven-inch diameter mirror in his backyard in the spring of 1781, William Herschel detected a previously unidentified object in the sky.

He named the planet the “Georgian Star” after King George III, but the astronomers in Europe weren't keen on it. “Uranus,” for the mythological father of Saturn, was adopted as the planet's official name.

As a result of the discovery, Herschel was appointed the “King's Astronomer,” with an annual pension of 200 pounds, and Caroline was hired as his aide. She received 50 pounds a year, becoming the first professional female astronomer in history.

William Herschel would go on to make more than 400 telescopes, the largest a 40-foot telescope with a four-foot mirror. He discovered infrared radiation using a contraption with thermometers and prisms to gauge the temperature of colors. He also drew maps of the Milky Way galaxy and cataloged some 2,000 objects that were later published, with his son John's observations, in the New General Catalogue.

Caroline Herschel became a noted astronomer in her own right. Using a telescope that William gave her, she became the first woman ever to discover a comet and went on to find eight of them. She also did the extensive calculations for her brother's research.

“Caroline became a celebrity who was taken seriously by the male astronomers of her time,” Lemonick noted and then introduced the audience to a “special guest.”

Portraying Caroline Herschel in clothing of the period, Wilmington resident Lynn King shared a few insights about the noted astronomer's life and her role in helping her favorite brother.

She said the trip from Hanover to England was frightening due to a storm, which toppled their carriage. Her initial days in England were filled with lessons in English, mathematics, singing, and the harpsichord. However, she sang so well she was offered a professional position, which she declined. John Adams came to visit when he was ambassador to England, and the Herschels also had correspondence with Benjamin Franklin. She was four months shy of 98 when she died.

King concluded with a quote from Caroline Herschel:

"However long we live, life is short, so I work. And however important man becomes, he is nothing compared to the stars. There are secrets, dear sister, and it is for us to reveal them.”

Lemonick recounts the story of the Herschels in The Georgian Star published by W. W. Norton & Company in 2008.

The last talk in the Vernon Lecture Series, “Dark Energy and the Runaway Universe,” by acclaimed astronomer Alex Filippenko, will be held Saturday, Nov. 7. Register in advance on this Web page.

Article by Tracey Bryant