William Lassell
William Lassell (June 18 1799 – October 5 1880) was a British astronomer, born in Bolton, Lancashire, England.
He made his fortune as a beer brewer, which enabled him to indulge his interest in astronomy. He built an observatory near Liverpool with a 24-inch reflector telescope, for which he pioneered the use of an equatorial mount for easy tracking of objects as the earth rotates. He ground and polished the mirror himself, using equipment he also constructed himself.
In 1846 he discovered Triton, the largest moon of Neptune, soon after the discovery of Neptune itself. In 1848 he independently co-discovered Hyperion, a moon of Saturn. In 1851 he discovered Ariel and Umbriel, two new moons of Uranus.
When Queen Victoria visited Liverpool in 1851, Lassell was the only local she specifically requested to meet.
In 1855, he built a 48-inch telescope, which he installed in Malta because of the better observing conditions (weather) compared to Britain.
Upon his death, he left a fortune of £80,000 (equivalent of millions of dollars by today's standards).
He won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1849, and served as its president for two years starting in 1870.
Lassell crater on the Moon, a crater on Mars and a ring of Neptune were named in his honour.
External links
Obituaries
- AN 98(1881) 108 (in German)
- MNRAS 41(1881) 188
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