Credit: © The Royal Society
Image number: RS.9803
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Methods of ‘gaging the heavens’
Date
April 1784
Creator
William Herschel (1738 - 1822, German-British) , Astronomer
Object type
Archive reference number
Material
Dimensions
height (drawing): 328mm
width (drawing): 201mm
width (drawing): 201mm
Subject
Content object
Description
Plate 18 figures 17-18 for the paper “Account of some observations tending to investigate the construction of the heavens”, by William Herschel, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, vol.74 part 2 (1784), pp.437-451. Figure 17 is Herschel’s demonstration of observing the Milky Way galaxy stars using telescopes of different apertures. Figure 18 shows a method of determining the Sun’s location in relation to other objects in what Herschel termed the ‘stratum’ of the Milky Way.
Associated place