Read as part of CBR17 Bingo: migrant. William Herschel, the main focus of this book, was born and raised in Germany but eventually migrated to England due to military commitments. He settled in England, where his migration was most beneficial as he turned to astronomy and discovered great things in the name of the King.
I’m not a big science guy but astronomy has always been a curiosity of mine. What I know about it could fit in a thimble — and this book probably just fills the thimble — but I still find the stars, the planets, the galaxy fascinating. Not enough to read more about it than I have to but enough to be curious when I do.
William Herschel was a fascinating man to read about. Coming from Germany to England originally to play music, settling there because he took up astronomy, and building a telescope so great that he discovered Uranus (originally named the Georgian Star after George III, yes that George III) was an enormous accomplishment. This is a quick book that gets down to it; it doesn’t overwhelm the reader with unnecessary details but gave me enough of a picture to know what was going on.
Caroline Herschel would come into his life later. A wealthy woman by the time they married, she helped fund another telescope along with the patronage of the Kings of England that led him to discover infrared light and change how future astronomers would measure the distances between planets and stars. You can’t have one without the other and it’s good that the writer chose to remember both.
An aside: seeing this current administration destroy arts and sciences, it makes me sad to know how much a powerful patron can make a difference, even if I don’t agree with self-perpetuating autocratic governance either.