Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 About this book
- 2 The hidden treasures
- Appendix A Caroline Herschel: no ordinary eighteenth-century woman
- Appendix B Hidden treasures: basic data
- Appendix C Twenty additional hidden treasures
- Appendix D Deep-sky lists: comparison table
- Appendix E Photo credits
- Index
- The treasure chest
Appendix A - Caroline Herschel: no ordinary eighteenth-century woman
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 About this book
- 2 The hidden treasures
- Appendix A Caroline Herschel: no ordinary eighteenth-century woman
- Appendix B Hidden treasures: basic data
- Appendix C Twenty additional hidden treasures
- Appendix D Deep-sky lists: comparison table
- Appendix E Photo credits
- Index
- The treasure chest
Summary
February 26, 1783. Night falls cold and clear. A slight young woman of 32 slips out of her house in Datchet, England, and sets up a small refractor on a grass plot covered with frost. Seated in the frigid air, wrapped in a wool shawl and cap, the woman points her telescope just above the southern horizon and begins sweeping the heavens. Her desire is to discover a comet, but she cannot help but stop to record every remarkable object she sees. Time passes uneventfully at first, until she spies a “very faint nebula” near Gamma (γ) Canis Majoris not in Messier's list of known objects. A spark of warmth ignites in her body. Caroline Herschel has just made the first of several discoveries that, arguably, will alter the course of astronomical history.
Caroline lucretia herschel was born in Hanover, Germany, on March 16, 1750. She was the eighth of 10 children born to Isaac and Anna and nearly 12 years younger than her revered older brother, Friedrich Wilhelm (later William). She had, like her father and William, a penchant for music and was a talented soprano. In 1778 she was offered an engagement for the Birmingham Festival, but she declined, having resolved to sing in public only where her brother, William, was conductor.
The strong attachment and affection between Caroline and William began as soon as Caroline could show or express her feelings and continued throughout their lives.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Deep-Sky Companions: Hidden Treasures , pp. 545 - 561Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007