William Herschel - Stars Quotes

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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

I have looked farther into space than ever human being did before me. I have observed stars of which the light, it can be proved, must take two millions of years to reach this earth!

William Herschel

The sun is the celestial body which should first attract our notice, not only on its own account but since the fixed stars are, by the strictest analogy, similar bodies.

William Herschel

It has generally been supposed that it was a lucky accident that brought this new star to my view; this is an evident mistake. In the regular manner I examined every star of the heavens, not only of that magnitude but many far inferior, it was that night its turn to be discovered.

William Herschel

We may strongly suspect that there is not, in strictness of speaking, one fixed star in the heavens, and reasons which I shall adduce will render this so obvious that there can hardly remain a doubt of the general motion of all the starry systems, and, consequently, of the solar one among the rest.

William Herschel

"Does it not seem natural that these observations should cause a strong suspicion that most probably every star in the heavens is more or less in motion?" For though their proper motions could not cause all these changes, yet we may well suppose that motion is in some way concerned.

William Herschel

Since stars appear to be suns, and suns, according to the common opinion, are bodies that serve to enlighten, warm, and sustain a system of planets, we may have an idea of the numberless globes that serve for the habitaton of living creatures.

William Herschel

That stars are suns can hardly admit of a doubt. The sun turns on its axis; so do variable stars; most probably all stars. Stars have spots like the sun; in some stars we know these spots to be changeable.

William Herschel

An object may not only contain stars, but also nebulosity not composed of them.

William Herschel

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.

William Herschel

I have looked further into space than ever human being did before me. I have observed stars of which the light, it can be proved, must take two million years to reach the earth.

William Herschel

'We may... have surmised nebulae to be no other than clusters of stars disguised by their very great distance, but a longer experience and better acquaintance with the nature of nebulae, will not allow a general admission of such a principle, although undoubtedly a cluster of stars may assume a nebulous appearance when it is too remote for us to discern the stars of which it is composed.

William Herschel

It is evident that we cannot mean to affirm that the stars of the fifth, sixth, and seventh magnitudes are really smaller than those of the first, second, or third, and that we must ascribe the cause of the difference in the apparent magnitudes of the stars to a difference in their relative distances from us. On account of the great number of stars in each class, we must also allow that the stars of each succeeding magnitude, beginning with the first, are, one with another, further from us than those of the magnitude immediately preceding.

William Herschel

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.

William Herschel

A standard of reference for the arrangement of the stars may be had by comparing their distribution to a certain properly modified equality of scattering. The equality which I propose does not require that the stars should be at equal distances from each other, nor is it necessary that all those of the same nominal magnitude should be equally distant from us.

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

Instead of inquiring after the nature of the cause of the condensation of nebulous matter, it would indeed be sufficient for the present purpose to call it merely a condensing principle; but since we are already acquainted with the centripetal force of attraction which gives a globular figure to planets, keeps them from flying out of their orbits in tangents, and makes one star revolve around another, why should we not look up to the universal gravitation of matter as the cause of every condensation, accumulation, compression, and concentration of the nebulous matter?

William Herschel

The starlike appearance of the following six nebulæ is so considerable that the best description... was to compare them to stars with certain deficiencies.

William Herschel

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

These [binary stars] may serve another very important end.... Several stars of the first magnitude have been observed or suspected to have a proper motion; hence we may surmise that our sun, with all its planets and comets, may also have a motion towards some particular point of the heavens.... If this surmise should have any foundation, it will show itself in a series of some years in a kind of systematical parallax, or change due to the motion of the whole solar system.

William Herschel