London, a cosmopolitan city

Institut Pla Marcell – Curs 2010/11

Maria Bramona

ACTIVITAT 3. TELESCOPI DE HERSCHEL

“This is the first of two metal mirrors made by Sir William Herschel for the
Great Forty-Foot reflecting telescope that he built in the garden of his home in
Slough. The mirror was cast at a London foundry in 1785, using speculum
metal, a reflective alloy of mainly copper and tin. It remained the largest mirror
in existence until 1845 when Lord Rosse made a 72-inch mirror. Although
weighing over half a tin, Herschel’s first mirror was too thin to hold its shape
and sagged at the centre when mounted in the telescope. Despite these
problems he managed to grind and polish the mirror satisfactorily, co-
ordinating the efforts of ten workmen.

In 1787, impatient to try it out, Herschel directed the telescope towards the
Orion nebula and crawled into the tube itself with a hand-held eyepiece.
[...] The original mirror continued to be used while the later one was re-
polished periodically, using a machine of Herchel’s own design. Although the
telescope was a considerable technical achievement, problems with the mirrors
and the unwieldiness of the instrument meant that it did not show a
substantial improvement over his smaller instruments. With it, however,
Herschel discovered Enceladus and Mimas, the sixth and seventh moons of
Saturn.”
 London, a cosmopolitan city
Institut Pla Marcell – Curs 2010/11
Maria Bramona

Funcionament i les parts

Fonamentalment, consta de dues parts òptiques; l’ocular i l’objectiu. L’ocular

és la lent des d’on observem l’objecte. I l’objectiu s’encarrega de captar la llum
que es transporta per els miralls de dins del tub fins a l’ocular i té un tub gran
per aguantar les lents.

Bibliografia de Herschel

Astrònom britànic, fill de Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel.

Durant un quant temps treballà juntament amb James South en la revisió de les
dades dels catàlegs estel·lars del seu pare. L'any 1834 establí un observatori a
Feldhausen, pròxim a la Ciutat del Cap, i hi romangué quatre anys estudiant el
firmament austral. Durant aquest temps descobrí 1 202 sistemes dobles i 1
707 cúmuls estel·lars i nebulosos. Entre les seves obres es destaca Outlines of
Astronomy (1849).

Radiació infraroja

Actualment, la llum infraroja té múltiples aplicacions; les consoles de

videojocs, comandaments a distància, el bluetooth, calefacció, visors tèrmics i
algunes aplicacions tèrmiques o quotidianes.