At our May 15th meeting, Bill Taliaferro will talk about the life, times, and discoveries of William and Caroline Herschel, the 18th-Century German-English astronomers who are considered some of the founders of modern cosmology. Their story is extraordinary. A military musician, William fled the Seven Years' War in Europe to become a successful orchestra leader and composer in the fashionable English city of Bath. He developed an amateur interest in astronomy, which led him to building telescopes. Before long, he was making the best telescopes in the world, enabling him and his sister, Caroline, to make a series of discoveries and the conceptual revolutions that went with them.

Herschel discovered the planet Uranus and two of its moons, two moons of Saturn, and the existence of binary star systems and infrared radiation. He coined the terms planetary nebula, globular cluster, and asteroid. His surveys of the skies led him to grow the catalogue of deep-sky objects from 104 to over 2,500 and to identify over 800 double and multiple stars. His and Caroline's catalogues and those of his son, John, form the core of the New General Catalogue, which we still use today. He discerned the shape of the Milky Way galaxy and our solar system's direction of travel. He theorized a universe that was not static but constantly evolving. In short, he revolutionized astronomy. Along the way, he became the King's personal astronomer and built the world's largest telescope. It's quite a story. Come to our May 15th meeting and learn all about these two leading figures in the field of astronomy.

At this meeting we’ll also continue our tradition of giving away an Astroscan telescope from the several that were donated to the club last fall. You must be a club member in good standing (i.e. an application on file and dues paid) in order to enter the drawing.

The meeting is at 7:00 on Thursday, May 15th at the Eugene Science Center planetarium, 2300 Leo Harris Parkway in Eugene (behind Autzen Stadium). Note that the west entrance off Martin Luther King Blvd. is closed, so you have to go around to the east entrance. If you’re arriving from the west, go past the light at Kinsrow and turn right on Leo Harris Parkway. The new parking lot is open now; the entrance is at the very end of the remaining section of Leo Harris Parkway.