About

William Herschel's discovery of Uranus in 1781 – the first new planet found by humanity since antiquity – had many consequences. It made Herschel famous overnight, changed our conception of the cosmos and was a driver for the enlightenment.

One of these consequences was the founding of an observatory in Armagh by Richard Robinson, Archbishop of Armagh who knew Herschel personally. A century later the famous New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars (the NGC) was compiled in Armagh by its then Director, John Dreyer. Another consequence was the building of the great telescope at Birr Castle in County Offaly in Ireland by William Parsons, the 3rd Earl of Rosse. The "Leviathan" was the largest telescope in the World for over 70 years and observed the spiral nature of galaxies.

The three historic observatories of Ireland – Armagh, Birr and Dunsink (Dublin) – whose astronomers have worked closely together from their foundations – all have ambitious plan for the future and are asking how they might mark the 250th anniversary of the discovery of Uranus in Bath on 13th March 2031.

Professor Michael Burton is the Director of the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium as well as the President of the International Astronomical Union's Commission C4 on "World Heritage and Astronomy". His own career in astronomy has followed in some of Herschel's pioneering footsteps. It began in Edinburgh studying cosmic sources of infrared radiation (as first discovered by Herschel) using one of the first telescopes specially built for the infrared – the UKIRT in Hawaii. Over the past decade he has been studying the structure of our Milky Way Galaxy – of which Herschel drew the first map – using radio telescopes in Australia in order to map out the giant clouds of molecules where stars are forming. Today he runs both the Observatory and Planetarium in Armagh, where research & discovery, education & outreach, history & heritage all come together and contribute to a sense of place and civic pride in the community.

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