The Day We Found the Universe - Marcia Bartusiak [30]
Lord Rosse's drawings of M51 (top) and M99 (bottom),
which in the mid-1840s were the first nebulae found to have a spiraling
structure (From Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of
London 140 [1850]: 499-514, Plate XXXV)
It was said that Rosse's telescope was “poised so skilfully that a child could guide its movements.” By one astronomer's reckoning, it could gather twenty thousand times the light of the unaided eye. But the Leviathan did possess one blatant shortcoming: “It does not present objects in a perfectly distinct manner,” said Richard Proctor, a contemporary of Rosse's who once had the opportunity to peek at the sky with the giant telescope. “It used to be remarked of the great four-feet reflector of Sir William Herschel, that it ‘bunched a star into a cocked hat.’” Proctor believed the same was true for Rosse's great instrument. The sheer weight of the telescope's mirror—a truly massive four tons—distorted its images at times. Views of planets through the Rosse scope, judged Proctor, were “perfectly wretched.” Although the metal reflector had its good days as well as bad, criticism like this dampened enthusiasm for further advancement on mirrored telescopes. Herschel and Rosse had made great strides with their big reflectors, but most astronomers still preferred gathering their celestial light with lenses. Not until James Keeler got the Crossley reflector up and running at Lick Observatory in the 1890s did astronomers at last change their minds on their instrumental preference.
Rosse, an engineering wizard, was always more attracted to constructing a telescope than to using it. His astronomical work continued for some twenty years, but most of the measurements were carried out by associates. His greatest contribution to astronomy was his discovery of the spirals, revealed when the Leviathan first went into operation. In doing this, he introduced an entirely new celestial creature, a novel species of nebula that would tantalize and frustrate astronomers for decades to come.
Popular interest in astronomy grew immensely in the nineteenth century, likely fueled by the rising use of photography, which at last allowed the general public to view and admire gorgeous pictures of the celestial heavens at their leisure. The first known daguerreotype of a celestial object, the Moon, was taken by the American physician John Draper in the 1840s. Later, the brightest stars were imaged. But the process became more routine with the introduction of more sensitive plates in the 1870s, which allowed fainter and more diaphanous objects, such as nebulae, to be photographed.
At the same time, the invention of the spectroscope offered a novel means for astronomers to pursue the mystery of the nebulae. Widely known as the “new astronomy” or astrophysics, spectroscopy was particularly favored by the enthusiasts who lacked formal mathematical training in classical astronomy. Professional astronomers were slow to appreciate the power of the new instrument. Indeed, they were distraught to see their telescopes, once set up like grandiose metal sculptures within towering domes, now surrounded by a chaotic array of chemical and electrical contraptions required to carry out spectroscopic work. But nonprofessionals astutely perceived that spectroscopy, despite its inelegance, opened up virgin astronomical territory. Rather than dully peg the positions of stars to stupefying accuracies, they were going to discern the very nature of celestial objects—what they are instead of where they are.
No one was more dedicated or persistent in this new enterprise than William Huggins. At the age of thirty he sold his textile business in England and erected a private observatory at