Astronomer William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus. (Image credit: Smithsonian Institution) A musical beginning. Born in Germany as Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel, the astronomer was the son of ...

Sir William Herschel (1738–1822) (German-born English astronomer) Discoveries. Mars and Jupiter show axial rotation; Planet Uranus (1781) Uranus’s two largest moons, Titania and Oberon (1787) ...

But on the clear Tuesday evening of March 13, 1781, as 42-year-old William Herschel hunkered down at the eyepiece of his 6.2-inch Newtonian reflector, he saw something he did not expect.

Caroline Herschel worked with her brother William on many pursuits. (Image credit: A. Diethe/Wellcome Images via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA) Caroline was a somewhat unwilling astronomer at first.

Astronomer Caroline Herschel’s work discovering and cataloging astronomical objects in the 18th century is still used in the field today, but she didn’t always get her due credit.

William Herschel’s life stands as a shining example of how God’s creation can ignite a passion that leads to a lifetime of study, even without formal training.

Astronomer William Herschel was looking up at the night sky on March 13, 1781, when he stumbled upon the seventh planet from the sun and the last to be discovered in our solar system.

William Herschel (1738-1822) discovered Uranus, infrared radiation and moons of Saturn. But until he was 44, he was also a tireless freelance musician.

These musician siblings became rock stars—in astronomy. 200 years before Queen’s Brian May became an astrophysicist, William and Caroline Herschel set aside their musical instruments to build ...

And when William became a professional astronomer, entering the king's service, Caroline followed, giving up her own musical career and devoting her life to astronomy as well. Without her, William ...