Influenced by the desire to examine these objects, Sir John Herschel
determined to take his great telescope to a station in the southern
hemisphere, and thus complete his survey of the sidereal heavens. The
latitude of the Cape of Good Hope is such that a suitable site could
be there found for his purpose. The purity of the skies in South
Africa promised to provide for the astronomer those clear nights
which his delicate task of surveying the nebulae would require.
On November 13, 1833, Sir John Herschel, who had by this time
received the honour of knighthood from William IV., sailed from
Portsmouth for the Cape of Good Hope, taking with him his gigantic
instruments. After a voyage of two months, which was considered to
be a fair passage in those days, he landed in Table Bay, and having
duly reconnoitred various localities, he decided to place his
observatory at a place called Feldhausen, about six miles from Cape
Town, near the base of the Table Mountain. A commodious residence
was there available, and in it he settled with his family. A
temporary building was erected to contain the equatorial, but the
great twenty-foot telescope was accommodated with no more shelter
than is provided by the open canopy of heaven.
As in his earlier researches at home, the attention of the great
astronomer at the Cape of Good Hope was chiefly directed to the
measurement of the relative positions and distances apart of the
double stars, and to the close examination of the nebulae.
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