Page:Sir William Herschel, his life and works (1881).djvu/101

Rh this way examines the whole sky without omitting the least part. He commonly observes with a magnifying power of one hundred and fifty, and is sure that after four or five years he will have passed in review every object above our horizon. He showed me the book in which his observations up to this time are written, and I am astonished at the great number of them. Each sweep covers 2° 15' in declination, and he lets each star pass at least three times through the field of his telescope, so that it is impossible that anything can escape him. He has already found about 900 double stars and almost as many nebulæ. I went to bed about one o'clock, and up to that time, he had found that night four or five new nebulæ. The thermometer in the garden stood at 13° Fahrenheit; but, in spite of this, observes the whole night through, except that he stops every three or four hours and goes in the room for a few moments. For some years has observed the heavens every hour when the weather is clear, and this always in the open air, because he says that the telescope only performs well when it is at the same temperature as the air. He protects himself against the weather by putting on more clothing. He has an excellent constitution, and thinks about nothing else in the world but the celestial bodies. He has promised me in the most cordial way, entirely in the service of astronomy, and without thinking of his own interest, to see to the telescopes I have ordered for European observatories, and he will himself attend to the preparation of the mirrors."