Lassell, William

▪ British astronomer

born June 18, 1799, Bolton, Lancashire, Eng.

died Oct. 5, 1880, Maidenhead, Berkshire

      amateur English astronomer who discovered Ariel and Umbriel, satellites of Uranus; and Triton, a satellite of Neptune. He also discovered a satellite of Saturn, Hyperion (also discovered independently by William Bond (Bond, William Cranch) and George Bond).

      Lassell started a brewery business about 1825, after a seven-year apprenticeship. He became interested in astronomy and, in 1844, began construction of a 24-inch reflecting telescope, using a machine of his own design for polishing the mirror. With this telescope, the first of its size to be set in an equatorial mounting, he discovered Triton on Oct. 10, 1846, only 17 days after Neptune itself had been discovered. In 1848 he discovered Hyperion (on the night that the Bonds made the same discovery). Two years later Lassell made his first sighting of the dark inner ring of Saturn (called the crepe ring); he spent the entire night verifying the discovery only to find in his morning newspaper an article announcing Bond's discovery of the same phenomenon.

      Lassell discovered Ariel and Umbriel in 1851–52 while at Malta, and there in 1861 he erected a 48-inch reflector, which he used to observe and catalog hundreds of new nebulae. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1849 and was president of the Royal Astronomical Society from 1870 to 1872.

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