Sir William
Huggins
A pioneer of
astrophysics William Huggins was born on February 7th 1824 in
Middlesex, England.
When he was 18 he brought a telescope and was clearly
interested in astronomy however his parents persuaded him to run their draper
business in the City of London. This he
did from 1842-1854 when he sold the business and moved to Tulse Hill on the
outskirts of London and built an observatory with an 8 inch refractor.
He married
Margaret Lindsay, daughter of John Murray of Dublin, who also had an interest
in astronomy and scientific research. She encouraged her husband's photography
and helped to put their research on a systematic footing.
He would
become a pioneer of spectroscopy and designed a spectroscope and started
observing spectra of the Sun, Moon, planets and bright stars.
On 29 August
1864, Huggins was the first to take the spectrum of a planetary nebula, NGC
6543. He was also the first to distinguish between nebulae and galaxies by
showing that some (like the Orion Nebula) had pure emission spectra
characteristic of gas, while others like the Andromeda Galaxy had the spectral
characteristics of stars.
Huggins was
also the first to adopt dry plate photography in imaging astronomical objects.
Dry Plate is also known as gelatin process, is an improved type of photographic
plate.
Huggins died
on 12th May 1910.
No comments:
Post a Comment