18 16 John? Herschel took over from his 78-year-old father and undertook a lot of observation work. Under the guidance of his father, he re-polished his father's 6-meter-long reflective telescope, giving him an ideal instrument to re-observe and reorder the nebulae observed and studied by his father. 1834 At the beginning of this year, he took his family to the Cape of Good Hope in Africa, hoping to expand his father's tour of the stars to the southern sky. The re-polished 6-meter-long reflecting telescope is installed at the Fairhausen Temporary Observatory, a few miles from Cape Town. Due to the influence of the sea breeze, the mirror will lose its luster in a few days and need to be polished again. He foresaw this situation and specially brought three spare mirrors, one of which was cleaned by his father, the other by himself and the other by his father and son. He worked there for four years. Astronomical observation of the Cape of Good Hope, which took nine years to compile, was published in 1847. To commemorate John Herschel's contribution to science, after his death, England held a state funeral for him and buried him in Westminster Abbey near Newton's tomb.
The modern people of the Herschel family have become a thing of the past, and bigger and better telescopes will continue to appear. An English astronomer inherited reflecting telescope's career and decided to surpass Herschel in this respect. This is the famous Earl Ross.
Count Ross, born in a noble family, loves astronomy.
William? William parsons was born in York, England. There is a complicated relationship between Britain and Ireland. 180 1 year, Britain formally annexed Ireland and granted Ireland 100 seats in the imperial parliament. Ireland did not become an independent country until the middle of the 20th century. This historical origin makes it difficult for many celebrities to simply say that they are British or Irish. William? This is the case with Parsons, whose family owns territory in Ireland. 1822 Graduated from Oxford University and entered Parliament 12 years. 184 1 year, his son attacked his father and became the third earl of Deiros. Later, astronomers generally called him Ross. Ireland elected him as a member of the House of Lords on 1845. He is a real aristocrat, and few famous astronomers come from such an aristocratic family.
Ross's greatest hobby is building the biggest telescope. It took him five years to develop a copper-tin alloy suitable for making mirrors. Since 1827, reflecting telescope with a diameter of 38 cm and 6 1 cm have been built successively, and reflecting telescope with a diameter of 9 1 cm has been built in 1840, which is almost as big as reflecting telescope, the largest in Herschel. These telescopes are located in his own territory, which is called Bill, almost in the middle of Ireland.
A giant telescope named after a sea monster.
1842, Count Ross began to make a reflector with a diameter of184m, which is 2.25 times of Herschel's largest telescope, enough for a tall and strong man to stretch his limbs and lie on it. It is difficult to make such a big mirror. It took five attempts to succeed.
While grinding the mirror, he set out to install the lens barrel on it. The lens barrel is17m long and 24m in diameter, and is made of planks. In order to keep out the wind, the lens barrel is placed between two high walls, each of which is17m high and 22m long, along the north-south direction. This mirror weighs 3 6 tons, so it is not easy to put it into the lens barrel. It was not until February 1845 that all the giant reflective telescopes were installed and put into use after debugging and calibration.
Ross's great reflecting telescope is often called Leviathan. Leviathan was originally a Bible? For the sea monsters described in the Old Testament, see Chapter 4 1 of Job. Leviathan is often used in English to refer to those giants.
The sketches of M5 1 and M 1 are important discoveries.
In order to compare with Herschel, Ross observed various nebulae studied by Herschel. He found that M5 1 in messier catalog looked like a vortex, which made people know the first "vortex nebula" 1845. 1848, Ross discovered that M 1, the first celestial body in messier catalog, runs through many irregular bright thin lines. He thought it looked like a crab, so he called it "Crab Nebula", a name that has been used ever since. Facts in the future prove that these two discoveries are of great significance.
An important achievement of Count Ross's expedition.
At first, the "Monster of Fort Biel" seemed to bring a revolution to astronomy. However, in the following years, it failed to continue to create miracles. From a technical point of view, this instrument is an excellent instrument. However, due to the bad weather in Bill, which is located in the middle of Ireland, the telescope is inconvenient to operate, and it is impossible to look away from the meridian in the east-west direction, which is very troublesome to use in practice. The special celestial bodies that Ross is interested in can only be seen by the "Bierburg Sea Monster" when they are close to the meridian. In order to observe for one second, you have to wait for 24 hours, and two consecutive observation opportunities with good tranquility rarely appear.
Ross and other astronomers continued to use the Bieber Monster regularly for about 60 years. After Ross died 4 1 year, it became shaky and dangerous, and was finally removed. This mirror with a diameter of1914m was sent to the National Museum of Science and Industry in London for exhibition.
Count Ross made three important achievements in his adventure. First, he proved that it is feasible to build a large telescope. Unlike Herschel, Ross published his method of making mirrors, which others can use as a guide and a basis for continuous improvement. Secondly, Ross's tragic failure to fight the weather clearly shows that no matter how good the telescope is, it is useless if the meteorological conditions do not match. Astronomers began to consider not only the structure of the telescope, but also the location of its installation. Finally, although a huge telescope can be built, if you can't find a way to make it work freely and point to any part of the sky, it can't be used well. So two British astronomers improved the reflective telescope along this line of thought.