Uranus (Georgium Sidius)

Seven-foot telescope made by William Herschel, c.1780

This is William Herschel’s own telescope. It may be the one he used in his back garden in the spring of 1781 to study what appeared to be a comet. Repeated observation revealed it was a new planet – the first such discovery in written history. Today we call this planet Uranus.
‘Epitome of Astronomy’ or ‘A Compendius View of Our Solar System’, c. 1781-1800

This chart calls the seventh planet ‘Herschell’, after the man who discovered it in 1781. The name ‘Uranus’ only became common decades later. The distance table shows the new planet twice as far from the Sun as Saturn. William Herschel had doubled the size of the known Solar System.
Mean motion orrery, 1813-22

This orrery, or planetary model, shows six satellites around Uranus, the farthest planet then known. William Herschel discovered the innermost two, Titania and Oberon, in 1787. By 1798 he had reported four additional satellites. However, no other astronomer managed to see these and observations in the 1850s showed Herschel was mistaken. We now know of almost 30 Uranian satellites. All are named after characters from Shakespeare or Pope, following a tradition started by Herschel’s son John.