23 quotes
That the emission of light must waste the sun, is not a difficulty that can be opposed to our hypothesis.
Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works (1880)
This tends to confirm the hypothesis that all are composed of stars more or less remote.
Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works (1880)
I have made it a rule never to employ a larger telescope when a smaller will answer the purpose.
Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works (1880)
I have availed myself of the labors of preceding astronomers, but have been induced thereto by my own actual observation of the solar phenomena.
Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works (1880)
It is very probable that the great stratum called the Milky Way is that in which the sun is placed, though perhaps not in the very centre of its thickness.
Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works (1880)
Georgium Sidus 0 jam nune assuesec vocari- to a star which, with respect to us, first began to shine under his auspicious reign.
According to my theory, a dark spot in the sun is a place in its atmosphere which happens to be free from luminous decompositions [above it].
Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works (1880)
I compared it to H Geminorum and the small star in the quartile between Auriga and Gemini, and finding it so much larger than either of them, suspected it to be a comet.
An object may not only contain stars, but also nebulosity not composed of them.
Astronomical Observations relating to the Construction of the Heavens (1811)
A knowledge of the construction of the heavens has always been the ultimate object of my observations...
Astronomical Observations relating to the Construction of the Heavens (1811)
A proportional condensation of the nebulous matter in the brighter places will sufficiently account for their different degree of shining.
Astronomical Observations relating to the Construction of the Heavens (1811)
We may conceive that, perhaps in progress of time these nebulæ which are already in such a state of compression, may be still farther condensed so as actually to become stars.
Astronomical Observations relating to the Construction of the Heavens (1811)
I have tried to improve telescopes and practiced continually to see with them. These instruments have play'd me so many tricks that I have at last found them out in many of their humours.
The starlike appearance of the following six nebulæ is so considerable that the best description... was to compare them to stars with certain deficiencies.
Astronomical Observations relating to the Construction of the Heavens (1811)
Here is truly a hole in Heaven.
August 28, 1780, having brought the telescope to the parallel of Saturn, I discovered a sixth satellite of that planet; and 'l also saw the spots upon Saturn better than I had ever seen them before; so that I may date the finishing of the forty~feet telescope from that time.
We can hardly suppose a possibility of the production of a globular form without a consequent revolution of the nebulous matter, which in the end may settle in a regular rotation about some fixed axis.
Astronomical Observations relating to the Construction of the Heavens (1811)
It will be necessary to explain the spirit of the method of arranging the observed astronomical objects under consideration in such a manner, that one shall assist us to understand the nature and construction of the other.
Astronomical Observations relating to the Construction of the Heavens (1811)
Nebulæ can be selected so that an insensible gradation shall take place from a coarse cluster like the Pleiades down to a milky nebulosity like that in Orion, every intermediate step being represented. This tends to confirm the hypothesis that all are composed of stars more or less remote.
Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works (1880)
I must freely confess that by continuing my sweeps of the heavens my opinion of the arrangement of the stars and their magnitudes, and of some other particulars, has undergone a gradual change...
Astronomical Observations relating to the Construction of the Heavens (1811)