Abstract
William Herschel (1738–1822) is certainly one of the great astronomers of history. His contributions range from discovering the planet Uranus in 1781 to the nature of binary stars orbiting one another to the size and structure of our stellar system. He also investigated the formation and lifetime of the nebulae and star clusters visible with his large reflector telescopes. And all of this took place only after he had reached the age of 40, when he switched from being a musician to a full-time telescope maker and astronomer!
The film William Herschel and the Universe by George Sibley takes us through Herschel’s lifetime, including his youth in Hanover, Germany, as part of a military band, his emigration to England where he built a successful musical career in the fashionable spa town of Bath, and of course his astronomical exploits. We also learn about the vital roles of his sister Caroline, who greatly enhanced his productivity and discovered many comets herself, and his brother Alexander, who aided with building his telescopes.
The film is a documentary with voice-over narration and alternating use of actors (who, however, never speak) and talking-head experts. Live shots of Hanover and Bath appear, but the main technique employs “green-screen” backgrounds, resulting in theatrical-like sets for streets, buildings, telescopes, and so on. Frequent expert commentary from historians such as Michael Hoskin, Simon Schaffer, and Jim Bennett greatly enhance the documentary. But the film is often ahistorical with references to current astronomical knowledge, the Hubble Space Telescope, and so on. I especially enjoyed the chance to hear several minutes of Herschelian orchestral compositions from a concert staged in Germany.
We do not learn anything new about Herschel, but the experts do point out many salient characteristics of his pioneering science. These include his consideration of the heavens as part of an empirical natural history, an approach not unlike that of the geologist who walks through the mountains and tries to figure out the past from systematic examination of evidence from the present. Also covered is the novel construction of his giant reflector telescopes with their clever mountings and metal (speculum) mirrors.
Any historian or astronomer with interest in Herschel or his times will be curious to see what Sibley has produced; but I do have difficulty imagining for what audience this film was intended, especially considering its length and limited subject. Its budget was insufficient for showing on network television. It could be used by a high school science teacher with historical interests, but seems not sophisticated enough for use in a college class on the history of science. It might be an ideal feature at a meeting of a society of amateur astronomers.