What Happens if We Remove a Planet from the Solar System?

[Rader]

good point

Originally posted by Nereid
According to the information in the site below, the first photographic plate of a star wasn't taken until 1850, long after Herschel death.

http://www.astro.virginia.edu/~afs5z/photography.html

As to how specific the goals of Herschel's observing were, the material you cite certainly has an authentic ring to it. However, I wonder to what extent he was searching for a seventh planet - and had good reasons for why he searched where he did - as opposed to a general interest in the sky, and was systematically searching the sky for anything interesting?

Nereid you have a very good point. Is there a site that is open to the public to retrive documents on discovery that are written by there authors. Over time things get distorted. It would be great to know the scientfic process of exactly how, not just dates and general info. In his days he did not have computers and automatic CCD plate trasing of certain sections of the sky. It was time consuming plate inspection. Some comets are found by looking for a needle in a haystack but its usually not the case. I would like to know that answer regarding Uranus.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Originally posted by Rader
Nereid you have a very good point. Is there a site that is open to the public to retrive documents on discovery that are written by there authors. Over time things get distorted. It would be great to know the scientfic process of exactly how, not just dates and general info. In his days he did not have computers and automatic CCD plate trasing of certain sections of the sky. It was time consuming plate inspection. Some comets are found by looking for a needle in a haystack but its usually not the case. I would like to know that answer regarding Uranus.

Herschell did not have photography of course, it did not exist in the 18th century. He (or more often his sister) made drawings. I do not know if he had a micrometer on his telescope which would have enabled scale drawings.

 

[Nereid]

Originally posted by Rader
Nereid you have a very good point. Is there a site that is open to the public to retrive documents on discovery that are written by there authors. Over time things get distorted. It would be great to know the scientfic process of exactly how, not just dates and general info. In his days he did not have computers and automatic CCD plate trasing of certain sections of the sky. It was time consuming plate inspection. Some comets are found by looking for a needle in a haystack but its usually not the case. I would like to know that answer regarding Uranus.

Here's an online biography (there a catch):
http://static.elibrary.com/t/thehut...nuary011998/herschelfrederickwilliam17381822/

There's a Herschel Museum in Bath, England.
http://www.bath-preservation-trust.org.uk/museums/herschel/index.html

And a William Herschel Society, which has a number of publications, as well as a regular newsletter:
http://www.williamherschel.org.uk/publications.htm

There are also several biographies of William Herschel in dead-tree material; your friendly bookstore or Amazon may be able to help you purchase one.

 

[Loren Booda]

Some guy in Australia has found more supernovae than any other individual in history by using a backyard telescope, his eyes and his memory.

 

[Nereid]

Originally posted by Loren Booda
Some guy in Australia has found more supernovae than any other individual in history by using a backyard telescope, his eyes and his memory.

Rev Evans. However, there's a guy in the US who has found oodles of SNs (more than Rev Ev by now?), but he uses CCDs.

A single run of one of the 'high-z' SN search teams is likely to turn up more SNs than an amateur will find in a year.

Who keeps track? CBAT does:
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/RecentSupernovae.html