Author: HERSCHEL, John Frederick William
Title: Results of Astronomical Observations made during the years 1834-38......
Date: 1847
Price: GBP £ 2,500
Book Code: 211

Results of Astronomical Observations made during the years 1834-38 at the Cape of Good Hope,Being a Completion of a Telescopic Survey of the Whole Surface of the Visible Heavens,Commenced in 1825.

HERSCHEL, JOHN FEDERICK WILLIAM  (1792-1871)

London,Smith,Elder & Co.,1847,4to,publisher's blind-stamped cloth,with engraved frontispiece and 18 engraved plates,mostly folding,in a fine gilt half calf case.

SIGNED PRESENTATION COPY FROM THE AUTHOR TO A.HEMMING,ESQ.

Herschel's most important work.He was the son and only child of Sir William Herschel, ‘the father of stellar astronomy and discoverer of Uranus'.During his lifetime John was immensely celebrated,his name epitomizing science to the public,much as that of Einstein.He became president of the Royal Astronomical Society and followed his father's lead in observing nebulae,clusters,and double-stars.A monumental catalogue of 2,307 nebulae and clusters,525 being new,was issued in 1833.By 1836 he had published six catalogues of double-stars,comprising3,346 systems.He is also the discoverer of the planet Neptune.

Herschel concieved the idea of an astronomical expedition to the Southern Hemisphere in 1832.The choices were America,Australia,and the Cape of Good Hope.The Cape Colony had come under British rule in 1806 as a consequence of the Napoleonic Wars.Cape Town had existed as a town since 1652 and was important as a way station for many ships en route to India.The British had established an observatory there for the ‘improvement of astronomy and navigation' in 1820.As the result of the work of Lacalle in 1751-1753 it had an astronomical tradition and also enjoyed the technical advantage of being in the same longitude as eastern Europe,so that cooperative observations in the same meridian were possible.

Herschel arrived at Cape Town on 16th January 1834,with his family and an engineer called John Stone.He purchased an eighteen-room house called ‘The Grove',which he named ‘Feldhausen'south of Cape Town.Within six weeks Herschel and John Stone had erected on a spot now marked by a memorial obelisk,a twenty foot telescope and a seven foot equatorially mounted refractor brought with them on the voyage from England.By 1838 he had swept the whole of the southern sky,catalogued 1,707 nebulae and clusters,and listed 2,102 pairs of binary stars.He produced detailed sketches and maps of several objects, including the Orion region,the Eta Carinae nebula and the Magellanic Clouds,and extremely accurate drawings of many extragalactic and planetary nebulae(all included in this work).He observed lunar eclipses,and when Eta Carinae,an object whose nature is still not understood, underwent a dramatic brightening in December 1837,he recorded its behaviour in detail.

Herschel's output of  articles was immense in his lifetime,including contributions to Encyclopaedia Britannica and Philosophical Transactions.Although for many years in his father's shadow,both Herschels were pioneers of modern day astronomy.

DSB vol.vi,pp 323-328