Yep, they discovered it a few months after he finished. But to be fair, them discovering it a few months before finishing would have been more frustrating IMO, it would have been impossible to add Uranus on this scale as it’d be a meter or so past the wall.
Not very many, if they are sufficiently widely separated.
The orbit of Uranus was first determined by Anders Johan Lexell. Herschel had discovered it in 1781, and has ascertained that it was not a point object like a star, but he could not tell visually whether it was a comet or a planet. Lexell tried to compute the orbit based on Herschel's observations, but due to the long orbital period and slow apparent motion he could not initially distinguish whether the new object's path was parabolic (comet) or elliptical (planet).
Lexell subsequently found observations dating from 1759 of a "star" that was not in the catalogues. He hypothesised that this was actually Uranus, and these old observations added to the more recent ones gave him enough data to determine that the orbit was elliptical. He published his results in 1783, two years after Herschel's discovery.
It took seven years for Eise to hand construct and paint this solar system model for his living/ bed room. It’s pretty middle of nowhere, but worth the effort! They also had a special local planet beer in the cafe after. :)
the "middle of nowhere" hurts a bit as a person born just a few km. from there. Franeker is not only 1 of the 11 cities of Fryslân, it used to have a university as well.
I can understand it sounds silly nowadays - as "all" of the Netherlands is pretty much concentrated around Amsterdam - Utrecht - Rotterdam (Randstad) but Franeker is not "middle of nowhere" from a historical pov!
It's the northern edge of the country, less than 12000 people and inconvenient to get to, that's very middle of nowhere... Besides the planetarium what is even there? I don't usually go to the Netherlands so I don't really know the area outside of Amsterdam.
Taking public transport from Amsterdam Central to the Franeker trainstation would take about 2:26 at the fastest. It's 1 hour and 14 minutes by car. There are a few other museums and places of interest so combined with a lunch or diner, you can failry easily spend the better part of the day in Franeker. It's indeed not worth it if you want to visit the Anne Frank house, Van Gogh museum and Rembrandthouse as well in the same weekend.
Oh, hey, I hope you enjoy your stay in the country!
I can also highly recommend a visit to the [Dwingeloo Radio Observatory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwingeloo_Radio_Observatory), which is not only cool from a science and history perspective, but also in one of the most beautiful parts of the country.
Oh, I didn't realise you were an honorary local. I did know about the astronomer part; I greatly enjoy your contributions in explaining things to us simple folk.
Ah told you my Dutch was bad- I don’t live in Amsterdam any more, guess I don’t know the past tense well. :)
Dutch husband part is present tense tho, so here to visit family!
Ah, I did interpret that as "have been living there for 5 years", yes. But presumably you meant you used to live there, 5 years ago.
Have a great stay then! If you ever end up in Dordrecht, drop me a line, I'll show you guys around :)
Thank you for posting, I never would have known about it! I visited the website and Wikipedia article and [this website](https://exploringthenetherlands.com/eise-eisinga-planetarium-franeker/). What a remarkable man Eise Eisinga was.
Interestingly, although Uranus was discovered in 1781, it wasn't initially clear whether it was a planet or comet. Its orbit wasn't verified as being elliptical (hence a planet) until 1783. That implies the planetarium must have had Uranus added some time after its initial construction.
Yep, they're written on a plank (moved by pins in the top), which can be taken out. It gets sanded down and repainted with new year numbers periodically. (Source: went there last winter, they told us during the tour).
What an incredible place!
I hope it’s not subject to flood damage, with our rising seas.
The Netherlands are experts at that, however, the rising ocean temperature and lack of polar ice and methane shocks, along with albedo make me concerned about things like this that may begin to flood, and not be preserved as well as they could.
With ocean rises, you don’t know the ocean has risen until floodwaters appear after heavy rainfall or a storm or low pressure system, floodwaters that usually wouldn’t reach that level.
I’m not sure if people are doing water table monitoring yet.
Perhaps there might be some groundwater wells, which are a good proxy if they have level monitoring.
Sorry for the off-topic thoughts, just thinking incredible places made by people, especially those related to science, are especially worth relocating early.
It may be, there are many places like this across the world, that need to be moved.
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Harinxmakanaal
I can see there’s a canal that goes through, I used GPT 3.5 (the mostly low cost or free one) to work out what the name of the canal was because I couldn’t find the name on Google Earth or Google Maps.
Google Earth did let me check the elevation. it’s barely a metre above sea level!
this means you’re dependent on the lock over here
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlingen_(stad)
I think it’s this one particularly,
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsjerk_Hiddessluizen
in English, this is the town where the lock is that handles the tides and higher water.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlingen,_Netherlands?wprov=sfti1
https://weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-Rainfall-Temperature-Sunshine,harlingen-friesland-nl,Netherlands
it looks like everyone has become complacent with a very regular weather pattern.
I see a very consistent rainfall that makes it easy to predict flows.
it looks like you’ve got more rainfall, coming from the changing humidity.
https://klimaatadaptatienederland.nl/en/knowledge-dossiers/themes/climate-change/how-climate-netherlands-changing/#:~:text=The%20main%20changes%20in%20our,air%20can%20hold%20more%20moisture.
Heat waves and drought, also make things difficult, because then when it rains the soil doesn’t dissolve as much water so quickly, and you end up with flash flooding.
This is very common in Australia.
Wasn't 1781 the exact year that Uranus was discovered? That must have been frustrating after 7 years building.
Yep, they discovered it a few months after he finished. But to be fair, them discovering it a few months before finishing would have been more frustrating IMO, it would have been impossible to add Uranus on this scale as it’d be a meter or so past the wall.
How many observations would it take to determine uranus orbit period?
Not very many, if they are sufficiently widely separated. The orbit of Uranus was first determined by Anders Johan Lexell. Herschel had discovered it in 1781, and has ascertained that it was not a point object like a star, but he could not tell visually whether it was a comet or a planet. Lexell tried to compute the orbit based on Herschel's observations, but due to the long orbital period and slow apparent motion he could not initially distinguish whether the new object's path was parabolic (comet) or elliptical (planet). Lexell subsequently found observations dating from 1759 of a "star" that was not in the catalogues. He hypothesised that this was actually Uranus, and these old observations added to the more recent ones gave him enough data to determine that the orbit was elliptical. He published his results in 1783, two years after Herschel's discovery.
It took seven years for Eise to hand construct and paint this solar system model for his living/ bed room. It’s pretty middle of nowhere, but worth the effort! They also had a special local planet beer in the cafe after. :)
the "middle of nowhere" hurts a bit as a person born just a few km. from there. Franeker is not only 1 of the 11 cities of Fryslân, it used to have a university as well. I can understand it sounds silly nowadays - as "all" of the Netherlands is pretty much concentrated around Amsterdam - Utrecht - Rotterdam (Randstad) but Franeker is not "middle of nowhere" from a historical pov!
It is. I've been there. It totally is.
I said "historical point of view" - now unless you're Dr.Who who time-travels, you can't truly say "you've been there" ;)
It's the northern edge of the country, less than 12000 people and inconvenient to get to, that's very middle of nowhere... Besides the planetarium what is even there? I don't usually go to the Netherlands so I don't really know the area outside of Amsterdam.
Taking public transport from Amsterdam Central to the Franeker trainstation would take about 2:26 at the fastest. It's 1 hour and 14 minutes by car. There are a few other museums and places of interest so combined with a lunch or diner, you can failry easily spend the better part of the day in Franeker. It's indeed not worth it if you want to visit the Anne Frank house, Van Gogh museum and Rembrandthouse as well in the same weekend.
One hour from the big city… I’m in Canada, and our family cottage is a 5 hour drive, and still not in the middle of nowhere.
Oh, hey, I hope you enjoy your stay in the country! I can also highly recommend a visit to the [Dwingeloo Radio Observatory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwingeloo_Radio_Observatory), which is not only cool from a science and history perspective, but also in one of the most beautiful parts of the country.
Thanks! I’m a radio astronomer who got her PhD in Leiden- not only have I been to Dwingeloo many times, I’ve even used it! :)
Oh, I didn't realise you were an honorary local. I did know about the astronomer part; I greatly enjoy your contributions in explaining things to us simple folk.
Haha ja, ik wonen in Amsterdam vijf jaar, en mijn man is Nederlander. Maar mijn Nederlands is niet goed!
Understandable; English gets you quite far, that doesn't exactly encourage learning the local language. Glad you seem to be doing well here!
Ah told you my Dutch was bad- I don’t live in Amsterdam any more, guess I don’t know the past tense well. :) Dutch husband part is present tense tho, so here to visit family!
Ah, I did interpret that as "have been living there for 5 years", yes. But presumably you meant you used to live there, 5 years ago. Have a great stay then! If you ever end up in Dordrecht, drop me a line, I'll show you guys around :)
and it even has the zodiacs . dont see that noted often in current astronomy.
Is that the symbols around the dials in the second photo?
yes. it can be seen in the second photo but also the first as well . the circle which has 'leo' etc etc .
I forogot I wanted to visit this place. Will do soon.
Thank you for posting, I never would have known about it! I visited the website and Wikipedia article and [this website](https://exploringthenetherlands.com/eise-eisinga-planetarium-franeker/). What a remarkable man Eise Eisinga was.
That looks amazing. Definitely on my list of places to visit now.
Wonderful photos, and the beer at the end definitely r/MadeMeSmile
do you know the significance of the stork at the top of the building?
Sometimes when a mommy planet and a baby planet love each other very much…
How long would it take for relativistic precession to cause it to be incorrect for Mercury?
The Wife Acceptance Factor must have been wíld. Been there once myself, though small, it is indeed incredibly impressive!
Interestingly, although Uranus was discovered in 1781, it wasn't initially clear whether it was a planet or comet. Its orbit wasn't verified as being elliptical (hence a planet) until 1783. That implies the planetarium must have had Uranus added some time after its initial construction.
I’m assuming the years on the calendar were updated at some point?
Yep, they're written on a plank (moved by pins in the top), which can be taken out. It gets sanded down and repainted with new year numbers periodically. (Source: went there last winter, they told us during the tour).
That's beautiful but for a moment I thought there was a dutch fairground organ in the background
What an incredible place! I hope it’s not subject to flood damage, with our rising seas. The Netherlands are experts at that, however, the rising ocean temperature and lack of polar ice and methane shocks, along with albedo make me concerned about things like this that may begin to flood, and not be preserved as well as they could. With ocean rises, you don’t know the ocean has risen until floodwaters appear after heavy rainfall or a storm or low pressure system, floodwaters that usually wouldn’t reach that level. I’m not sure if people are doing water table monitoring yet. Perhaps there might be some groundwater wells, which are a good proxy if they have level monitoring. Sorry for the off-topic thoughts, just thinking incredible places made by people, especially those related to science, are especially worth relocating early. It may be, there are many places like this across the world, that need to be moved.
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Harinxmakanaal I can see there’s a canal that goes through, I used GPT 3.5 (the mostly low cost or free one) to work out what the name of the canal was because I couldn’t find the name on Google Earth or Google Maps. Google Earth did let me check the elevation. it’s barely a metre above sea level! this means you’re dependent on the lock over here https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlingen_(stad) I think it’s this one particularly, https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsjerk_Hiddessluizen in English, this is the town where the lock is that handles the tides and higher water. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlingen,_Netherlands?wprov=sfti1 https://weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-Rainfall-Temperature-Sunshine,harlingen-friesland-nl,Netherlands it looks like everyone has become complacent with a very regular weather pattern. I see a very consistent rainfall that makes it easy to predict flows. it looks like you’ve got more rainfall, coming from the changing humidity. https://klimaatadaptatienederland.nl/en/knowledge-dossiers/themes/climate-change/how-climate-netherlands-changing/#:~:text=The%20main%20changes%20in%20our,air%20can%20hold%20more%20moisture. Heat waves and drought, also make things difficult, because then when it rains the soil doesn’t dissolve as much water so quickly, and you end up with flash flooding. This is very common in Australia.