Talk:Caroline Herschel

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[edit] Completion of the Reduction ?

A puzzling phrase here:-

in 1828 she completed the reduction, to January 1800, of 2500 nebulae discovered by her brother.

No idea what this means but its exactly as it is in copies of the 1911 Britannica.

Did she reduce the number from 2500 to 1800 by eliminating duplictes ?. Did she verify the list of nebulae up to the point of Jan 1800 ?

Can anyone shed any light. Lumos3 09:11, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I have read elsewhere (e.g. http://www.edualter.org/material/mujer/astron.htm; in catalan) that Maria Winkleman (1670-1720) discovered a comet in 1702, which puts her well ahead of Caroline Herschel as the first woman to discover a comet. Clearly someone is in error.

[edit] Clarification & fact tags

While I was here to add an image, I copyedited the article a bit, and added quite a few fact, clarifyme, and verify source templates. There are many statements here (including the one mentioned above by Lumos3, that need to be referenced or clarified. I will do my best to fix some of them, but science is not my area of expertise, so I'm probably not the best-qualified. PaladinWhite 16:56, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comet Encke

It is not clear who was the first to see this comet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.155.158.10 (talk) 15:10, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

All the information I can find says the Comet Encke was first seen by Mechain. It is bright enough to be seen with the un-aided eye from a dark site. It is odd that it was not seen before 1786. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.152.174.243 (talk) 15:02, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into this. This article is citing Ogilvie (ISBN 026265038X), yet the index does not mention Encke.

Johann Franz Encke says: "The comet was also identified with the one seen by Pierre Méchain in 1786 and by Caroline Herschel in 1795.", but without citing a source. The Encke obit (p. 131), supports this (and mentions Messier as another 1786 discoverer).

The Caroline Herschel obit (p. 65) lists eight comets with dates, and says she was first discoverer of five without saying which five.

What sources are you looking at? --Jtir (talk) 17:22, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I have made these changes. --Jtir (talk) 19:51, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

http://cometography.com/pcomets/002p.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.11.37.209 (talk) 16:43, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. That is consistent with what is now in the article, which is citing the MNRAS obits. --Jtir (talk) 21:05, 16 February 2008 (UTC)