William Herschel

1738–1822 · German-born British astronomer and composer

Topics: physics, learning

• 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...

  — William Herschel

• A knowledge of the construction of the heavens has always been the ultimate object of my observations...

  — William Herschel

• An equal scattering of the stars may be admitted in certain calculations; but when we examine the milky way, or the closely compressed clusters of stars... this supposed equality of scattering must be given up.

  — William Herschel

• 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.

  — William Herschel