NATS 1745 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Lowell Observatory, Kuiper Belt, Equatorial Bulge
13 Dec 2016
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Chapter 8 discoveries about our solar system made with the telescope. William herschel (1738-1822) and the discovery of uranus: an amateur astronomer who built the largest telescopes of his time. The tube was 40 feet long and the mirror was 1. 5 meters wide. Longer the tube means more magnification: while cataloguing stars to aid the search for stellar parallax, he became the 1st person to discover a planet. Stellar parallax had never been discovered to date. Finding shifts in a stars position as the earth orbits the sun. His sister was the first to discover comets: 1781: he observed a star-like object which increased in size when he increased his telescope magnification. Looked like a (cid:271)lo(cid:271) (cid:396)athe(cid:396) tha(cid:374) a poi(cid:374)t (cid:894)sta(cid:396)(cid:895). Ta(cid:396)s do(cid:374)"t appea(cid:396) (cid:374)oti(cid:272)eably bigger in size when you increase the magnification: shortly after, he observed its motion relative to the stars.
