Identifying Herschel misidentification

We read and appreciated the brief note about the opening of the Herschel archives (Physics Today, April 2012, page 30 ), but noticed that the credit for the illustration was misidentified. We write to correct the identification. From our past study of the Herschel drawings by William, Caroline, and John and from research for our book, ¹ we learned that the white-on-black comet drawings such as the panel of four that included the Halley’s Comet drawings (more than “sketches”) shown in the Physics Today piece, which had been credited to Caroline Herschel, were instead by John Herschel, her nephew. Previously we had corresponded with the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin about these misattributions and those of several similar drawings. We were pleased to see, during the January 2012 meeting of the historical astronomy division of the American Astronomical Society when we had the pleasure of visiting the archives, that personnel there had already made the changes and now list the drawings as being by John Herschel.

Caroline Herschel, born on 16 March 1750, was at least 85 years old when Halley’s Comet visited in 1835–36, and she was 95 when similar drawings of a comet from 1845 were made. ² Although she lived to nearly 98 years of age, in her later years she was no longer drawing astronomical phenomena. John, age 43 in 1845, was flourishing and using complex media to draw in his atmospheric style. The drawing in Physics Today matches the style of the engravings he published in his 1847 book Results of Astronomical Observations Made During the Years 1834, 5, 6, 7, 8, at the Cape of Good Hope.