William Herschel was a Hanoverian oboist who taught himself telescope-making and, one March night in 1781, doubled the size of the solar system. Edward S. Holden’s Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works follows the whole improbable career: the forty-foot telescope, the star-gauges that first mapped our galaxy’s form, and the partnership with his sister Caroline.
Holden, first director of the Lick Observatory, writes with a professional’s admiration for the greatest observer who ever lived. Download the free EPUB for the man who broke the sky’s old boundaries.