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William Herschel


johnfosteruk

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Great video. Lovely to see all that original William Herschel documentation. Such a wonderful collection. Also great to Mike Merrifield who is head of the school of physics and astronomy at The University of Nottingham, and friend of our local society. Thanks for sharing.

James

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Another copy of that medal mentioned at the end also appears on this website, though no further information is given. 

http://users.telenet.be/Astronomy_Coins_Medals/comets.htm

So looks to be unlikely to be a "one off" for Herschel, and the resolution is too low to see what planets are listed, and no image of the rim to see if there is any engraving there.

James

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Very nice video, thanks for the link!

The medal James links to seems to be in a private Belgian collection. It's owner suggests a possible date of "1800?".

However I am also drawn to a certain similarity with a drawing now in the State Museum of Pennsylvania http://statemuseumpa.org/solar-system-chart/  The article suggests the comet might be the Great Comet of March 1843 - and there are similar printed illustrations from the third quarter of the 19th century.

But if it is this late, Herschel's planet had been officially known as Georgium Sidus in honour of King George for some 60 years, and by this time the German name Uranus was beginning to replace it in England.

 

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40 minutes ago, Putaendo Patrick said:

Very nice video, thanks for the link!

The medal James links to seems to be in a private Belgian collection. It's owner suggests a possible date of "1800?".

However I am also drawn to a certain similarity with a drawing now in the State Museum of Pennsylvania http://statemuseumpa.org/solar-system-chart/  The article suggests the comet might be the Great Comet of March 1843 - and there are similar printed illustrations from the third quarter of the 19th century.

But if it is this late, Herschel's planet had been officially known as Georgium Sidus in honour of King George for some 60 years, and by this time the German name Uranus was beginning to replace it in England.

 

There's a striking resemblance isn't there but as you say it would be too late.

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1 hour ago, jambouk said:

Great video. Lovely to see all that original William Herschel documentation. Such a wonderful collection. Also great to Mike Merrifield who is head of the school of physics and astronomy at The University of Nottingham, and friend of our local society. Thanks for sharing.

James

Professor Merrifield is marvellous, he features in a lot of the videos on the sister channels Deepskyvideos and Sixty Symbols.

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I've been pondering this medal and I'm beginning to think it may well be from the United States.

Following the American War of Independence, I doubt anyone in the USA would have been very happy naming a planet in homage of the English King George. And effectively this is born out by printed solar charts from the US throughout the first half of the 19th century as well as the Pennsylvania drawing I linked to above.

Here we have a very typical map of the solar system from England from the early 19th Century (so far I haven't identified the source) :

solar system2.jpg

Top and bottom could have provided inspiration for both sides of the medal - but note that Uranus is identified as Georgium Sidus.

Now compare it with this illustration published in Philadelphia in 1833, which I suspect is based on a British or German exemplar:

solar system1.jpg

Note here Uranus is called Herschell. In passing I also see that the title of the medal "The Solar System" is in the same Gothic/Olde English letter-face - more than coincidence perhaps?. You can download a scan of the complete book at http://archive.org/stream/treatiseonastron00phil#page/n9/mode/2up

medal2.jpg

The medal shows the trajectory of two comets, but I don't think there is any special commemorative significance to these. These could perhaps represent the Great Comet of 1811 and the Halley's Comet of 1837 - but equally they could be the Great Comet of 1680 and Halley's 1759. Take your pick! There are charts of the Solar System showing the course of comets going back at least to the 1742 Celestial Map of the Universe by Thomas Wright of Durham.

Whether this medal has any direct connection with William Herschel who died in 1822 seems, sadly, rather dubious. It may, however, have been owned by his sister, Caroline (died 1848) or by his son, John (died 1871). If it was an important presentation medal, I would imagine it should have been made from silver or even gold!

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Overlaying the medal from the Royal Society in Photoshop on top of the medal found in the link above from the Belgium collector, they are the same medal on both sides. So maybe we should ask the collector where the medal went and see if either the new or previous owner knows any more about it. The images from the collectors website make it look much more contemporary than during William Herschel's life time.

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I sent Keith Moore, the Librarian of the Royal Society who presents the video, a link to this thread for reference. Here is his reply:

Hello Patrick and happy New Year!

Many thanks for taking the trouble to respond to the Objectivity video on Herschel. I was hoping that the medal would prompt some interest, so that we can attempt to discover a little more about it. Knowing about the specimen in the Belgian collection is terrific therefore.

The slightly confused use of ‘Uranus’ and ‘Herschel’ for the planet wasn’t limited to North America – you’ll see from the 1840s Illustrated London Almanack vignette illustration below, that this happened in the UK too, therefore an American origin would need some more substantive evidence. However the engraving from Philadelphia-sourced volume is interesting – you may just be able to see that the same gothic or blackletter script used for ‘the solar system’ appears on the medal. I would be inclined to date the medal to the 1820s-1830s and although the illustrations don’t precisely match, this helps to firm up that idea.

Now finding a European equivalent to the American illustration would be nice….

Best wishes

Keith.

almanack.jpg

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5 hours ago, Starlight 1 said:

I will ask the wife again to see  if the  Herschel  she work with to look at this post. as she do say much about the past ,may still have some paper work or old note in the house some were.

please do, it would be great if she could help shed some light.

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I love these old charts! Have a file full of them from as many periods possible. Thank you, Patrick!

It never ceases to amaze me how us humans manage to learn new ways of understanding the nature of our Universe. That this 'growth' has been truly exponential in gathering knowledge - utterly changing by true leaps & bounds!

Thanks again!

Dave

 

tychotablesmed.jpg

 

sacroarmilllrg.jpg

 

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