Questions 11-20 are based on the following passage.
In the summer of 1785 astronomer William
SOCIAl STUDIES: This passage is adapted from the book The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes (©2008 by Richard Holmes)
Herschel embarked on his revolutionary new project to
observe and resolve the heavens with a telescope more
powerful than ever previously attempted.
5 What he intended to build was a telescope 'of the
Newtonian form, with an octagon tube 40 foot long and
five feet in diameter; the specula [mirrors] of which it
would be necessary to have at least two, or perhaps
three'. The telescope would have to be mounted in an
10 enormous wooden gantry, capable of being turned
safely on its axis by just two workmen, but also suscep-
tible to the finest fingertip adjustments by the observ-
ing astronomer.
The forty-foot would be higher than a house. The
15 astronomer (William) would be required to climb a
series of ladders to a special viewing platform perched
at the mouth of the telescope. The assistant (William's
sister, Caroline) would have to be shut in a special
booth below to avoid light pollution, where she would
20 have her desk and lamp, celestial clocks, and observa-
tion journals. Astronomer and assistant would be invisi-
ble to each other for hours on end,shouting commands
and replies,although eventually connected by a metal
speaking-tube.
25 William had decided that his grand project
required a new house with larger grounds for construct-
ing and erecting the telescope. On 3 April 1786 they
moved to 'The Grove', a quite small and rather dilapi-
dated country house on the edge of the tiny village of
30 Slough, England.
The house itself was not large, but it had sheds and
stables which were gradually converted into workshops
and laboratories. Above the stables were a series of
haylofts which could be converted into a separate apart-
35 ment. Caroline claimed these for her own. A small out-
side staircase led up to a flat roof from which, she
hoped to carry out her comet 'sweeps' in security and
independently. She would check over the calculations
of William's nebulae by day, and make her own sweeps
40 up on the roof by night.
William had built Caroline a special two-foot
Newtonian reflector. Because of its large aperture, its
tube appeared much fatter, heavier and stubbier than
normal reflectors of this type: Suspended from a pivot
45 at the top of the box-frame, the telescope could be pre-
cisely raised or lowered by a system of pulleys operated
by a winding handle. These adjustments were easy to
make, and extremely fine.
This beautiful instrument was designed specifi-
50 cally for its huge light-gathering power and its wide
angle of vision. The magnification was comparatively
low at twenty-four times. As with modern binoculars,
this combination of low power with a large viewing
field allowed the observer to see faint stellar objects
55 very brightly, while placing them within a compara-
tively wide context of surrounding stars. The telescope
was perfectly designed to spot any strange or unknown
object moving through the familiar field of 'fixed
stars'. In other words, to catch new planets or new
60 comets.
On 1 August 1786, only two nights after starting
her new sweeps, Caroline thought she had spotted an
unknown stellar object moving through Ursa Major (the
Great Bear constellation). It appeared to be descending,
65 but barely perceptibly, towards a triangulation of stars
in the beautifully named constellation Coma Berenices.
To find something so quickly, and in such a familiar
place (the Great Bear or Big Dipper being the first stop
of every amateur stargazer wanting to locate the Pole
70 Star), seemed wildly unlikely. Caroline's Observation
Book conveys meticulous caution, but also remarkable
certainty.
Unable to calculate the mathematical coordinates
of the object; she accompanied her observations with a
75 series of three neat drawings or 'figures', over an
eighty-minute time lapse. These showed the circular
viewing field of her telescope, ,with an asterisk shape
very slightly changing position relative to three known
fixed stars. The account written into her 'Book of Work
80 Done'catches something of her growing excitement.
August 1st. I have calculated 100 nebulae
today, and this evening I saw an object which I
believe will prove tomorrow night to be a
Comet. August 2nd. 1 o'clock. the object of
85 last night IS A COMET. August 3rd. I did not
go to rest till I had written to Dr Blagden. [at
the Royal Society] and Mr Aubert to announce
the Comet.
The verification of Caroline's comet was achieved
90 much more rapidly than William's discovery of the
planet Uranus had been. Its movement through Coma
Berenices was relatively easy to ascertain, and its fine
hazy tail or coma was unmistakable.