Talk:William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse
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[edit] Types of Nebulae and the significance of Rosse's observations
Sorry for poor, sketchy English and lack of references, I'm quite tired.
The nature of nebulae was not known in Rosse's time. Galaxies and galactic and extra-galactic gas clouds were not well distinguished. It was not until he made his observations with the telescope he made (the largest in the world until 1917 when the American 100 inch ??? telescope was built) that "spiral nebulae", as they were at first called, were known about. To put this in context: it was not well determined that anything existed outside our own galaxy due to the limitations of contemporary methods of measurement using parallax of stars, and prevailing opinion was that we were near the centre of the galaxy.
"resolvable" and "irresolvable" nebulae of Hershel.
Mr. Jones 18:01, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
