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William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse (17 June 1800 – 31 October 1867), was an Irish astronomer, naturalist, and engineer. He was president of the
Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
(UK), the most important association of naturalists in the world in the nineteenth century. He built several giant telescopes. His 72-inch telescope, built in 1845 and colloquially known as the "
Leviathan of Parsonstown Leviathan of Parsonstown, or Rosse six-foot telescope, is a historic reflecting telescope of aperture, which was the largest telescope in the world from 1845 until the construction of the Hooker Telescope in California in 1917. The Rosse six-f ...
", was the world's largest telescope, in terms of aperture size, until the early 20th century. From April 1807 until February 1841, he was styled as Baron Oxmantown.


Life

He was born in
York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...
, England, the son of Sir Lawrence Parsons, later 2nd Earl of Rosse, and Alice Lloyd. He was educated at
Trinity College Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...
and
Magdalen College, Oxford Magdalen College (, ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete. Today, it is the fourth wealthiest college, with a financial endowment of £332.1 million as of 2019 and one of the ...
, graduating with first-class honours in mathematics in 1822. He inherited an
earldom Earl () is a rank of the nobility in the United Kingdom. The title originates in the Old English word ''eorl'', meaning "a man of noble birth or rank". The word is cognate with the Scandinavian form ''jarl'', and meant " chieftain", particula ...
and a large estate in King's County (now County Offaly) in Ireland when his father, Lawrence, 2nd Earl of Rosse, died in February 1841. Lord Rosse married
Mary Field Mary Field (born Olivia Rockefeller; June 10, 1909 – June 12, 1996) was an American film actress who primarily appeared in supporting roles. Early life She was born in New York City. As a child, she never knew her biological parents; ...
, daughter of John Wilmer Field, on 14 April 1836. They had thirteen offspring, of which four sons survived to adulthood: * Lawrence, 4th Earl of Rosse (known as Baron Oxmantown until 1867; 17 November 1840 – 30 August 1908). * The Rev. Randal Parsons (26 April 1848 – 15 November 1936). *
The Hon. ''The Honourable'' (British English) or ''The Honorable'' (American English; see spelling differences) (abbreviation: ''Hon.'', ''Hon'ble'', or variations) is an honorific style that is used as a prefix before the names or titles of certain ...
Richard Clere Parsons (21 February 1851 – 26 January 1923), apparently known for developing railways in South America. *
The Hon. ''The Honourable'' (British English) or ''The Honorable'' (American English; see spelling differences) (abbreviation: ''Hon.'', ''Hon'ble'', or variations) is an honorific style that is used as a prefix before the names or titles of certain ...
Sir Charles Algernon Parsons (13 June 1854 – 11 February 1931), known for inventing the
steam turbine A steam turbine is a machine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work on a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Charles Parsons in 1884. Fabrication of a modern steam tu ...
. In addition to his astronomical interests, Rosse served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for King's County from 1821 to 1834, president of the
British Association The British Science Association (BSA) is a charity and learned society founded in 1831 to aid in the promotion and development of science. Until 2009 it was known as the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA). The current Chie ...
in 1843–1844, an
Irish representative peer This is a list of representative peers elected from the Peerage of Ireland to sit in the British House of Lords after the Kingdom of Ireland was brought into union with the Kingdom of Great Britain. No new members were added to the House after ...
after 1845, president of the
Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
(1848–1854), and chancellor of
Trinity College Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...
(1862–1867).


Scientific studies

During the 1840s, he had the
Leviathan of Parsonstown Leviathan of Parsonstown, or Rosse six-foot telescope, is a historic reflecting telescope of aperture, which was the largest telescope in the world from 1845 until the construction of the Hooker Telescope in California in 1917. The Rosse six-f ...
built, a 72-inch (6 feet/1.83 m) telescope at
Birr Castle Birr Castle (Irish: ''Caisleán Bhiorra'') is a large castle in the town of Birr in County Offaly, Ireland. It is the home of the 7th Earl of Rosse and his family, and as such the residential areas of the castle are not open to the publi ...
,
Parsonstown Birr (; ga, Biorra, meaning "plain of water") is a town in County Offaly, Ireland. Between 1620 and 1899 it was called Parsonstown, after the Parsons family who were local landowners and hereditary Earls of Rosse. Birr is a designated Irish ...
, County Offaly. The telescope replaced a telescope that he had built previously. He had to invent many of the techniques he used for constructing the Leviathan, both because its size was without precedent and because earlier telescope builders had guarded their secrets or had not published their methods. Details of the metal, casting, grinding and polishing of the 3-ton 'speculum' were presented in 1844 at the
Belfast Natural History Society The Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society was founded in 1821 to promote the scientific study of animals, plants, fossils, rocks and minerals. The Society was founded by George Crawford Hyndman, James Lawson Drummond, James Grim ...
. Rosse's telescope was considered a marvellous technical and architectural achievement, and images of it were circulated widely within the British Commonwealth. Building of the Leviathan began in 1842 and it was first used in 1845; regular use waited another two years, due to the
Great Irish Famine The Great Famine ( ga, an Gorta Mór ), also known within Ireland as the Great Hunger or simply the Famine and outside Ireland as the Irish Potato Famine, was a period of starvation and disease in Ireland from 1845 to 1852 that constituted a h ...
. It was the world's largest telescope, in terms of aperture size, until the early 20th century. Using this telescope Rosse saw and catalogued a large number of nebulae (including a number that would later be recognised as galaxies). Lord Rosse performed astronomical studies and discovered the spiral nature of some
nebula A nebula ('cloud' or 'fog' in Latin; pl. nebulae, nebulæ or nebulas) is a distinct luminescent part of interstellar medium, which can consist of ionized, neutral or molecular hydrogen and also cosmic dust. Nebulae are often star-forming regio ...
s, today known to be spiral
galaxies A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System ...
. Rosse's telescope Leviathan was the first to reveal the spiral structure of M51, a galaxy nicknamed later as the "
Whirlpool Galaxy The Whirlpool Galaxy, also known as Messier 51a, M51a, and NGC 5194, is an interacting grand-design spiral galaxy with a Seyfert 2 active galactic nucleus. It lies in the constellation Canes Venatici, and was the first galaxy to be classifie ...
", and his drawings of it closely resemble modern photographs. Rosse named the
Crab Nebula The Crab Nebula (catalogue designations M1, NGC 1952, Taurus A) is a supernova remnant and pulsar wind nebula in the constellation of Taurus. The common name comes from William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, who observed the object in 1842 u ...
, based on an earlier drawing made with his older 36-inch (91 cm) telescope in which it resembled a crab. A few years later, when the 72-inch (183 cm) telescope was in service, he produced an improved drawing of a considerably different appearance, but the original name continued to be used. A main component of Rosse's nebular research was his attempt to resolve the
nebular hypothesis The nebular hypothesis is the most widely accepted model in the field of cosmogony to explain the formation and evolution of the Solar System (as well as other planetary systems). It suggests the Solar System is formed from gas and dust orbiting t ...
, which posited that planets and stars were formed by
gravity In physics, gravity () is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things with mass or energy. Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 1038 times weaker than the stro ...
acting on gaseous nebulae. Rosse himself did not believe that nebulas were truly gaseous, arguing rather that they were made of such an amount of fine stars that most telescopes could not resolve them individually (that is, he considered nebulas to be stellar in nature). In 1845 Rosse and his technicians claimed to have resolved the
Orion nebula The Orion Nebula (also known as Messier 42, M42, or NGC 1976) is a diffuse nebula situated in the Milky Way, being south of Orion's Belt in the constellation of Orion. It is one of the brightest nebulae and is visible to the naked eye in the ni ...
into its individual stars using the Leviathan, a claim which had considerable cosmological and even philosophical implications, as at the time there was considerable debate over whether or not the universe was "evolved" (in a pre-Darwinian sense), a concept which the nebular hypothesis supported and with which Rosse disagreed strongly. Rosse's primary opponent in this was
John Herschel Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet (; 7 March 1792 – 11 May 1871) was an English polymath active as a mathematician, astronomer, chemist, inventor, experimental photographer who invented the blueprint and did botanical wo ...
, who used his own instruments to claim that the Orion nebula was a "true" nebula (i.e. gaseous, not stellar), and discounted Rosse's instruments as flawed (a criticism Rosse returned about Herschel's own). Eventually, neither man (nor telescope) could establish sufficiently scientific results to resolve the question (the convincing evidence for the gaseous nature of the nebula would be developed later from
William Huggins Sir William Huggins (7 February 1824 – 12 May 1910) was an English astronomer best known for his pioneering work in astronomical spectroscopy together with his wife, Margaret. Biography William Huggins was born at Cornhill, Middlesex, in ...
's
spectroscopic Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets the electromagnetic spectra that result from the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and matter as a function of the wavelength or frequency of the radiation. Matter wa ...
evidence, though it would not immediately resolve the philosophical issues). One of Rosse's telescope admirers was
Thomas Langlois Lefroy Thomas Langlois Lefroy (8 January 1776 – 4 May 1869) was an Irish-Huguenot politician and judge. He served as an MP for the constituency of Dublin University in 1830–1841, Privy Councillor of Ireland in 1835–1869 and Lord Chief Justi ...
, a fellow Irish MP, who said, "The planet Jupiter, which through an ordinary glass is no larger than a good star, is seen twice as large as the moon appears to the naked eye... But the genius displayed in all the contrivances for wielding this mighty monster even surpasses the design and execution of it. The telescope weighs sixteen tons, and yet Lord Rosse raised it single-handed off its resting place, and two men with ease raised it to any height." Lord Rosse's son published his father's findings, including the discovery of 226 NGC objects in the publication ''Observations of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars Made With the Six-foot and Three-foot Reflectors at Birr Castle From the Year 1848 up to the Year 1878'', Scientific Transactions of the Royal Dublin Society Vol. II, 1878.


Lord Rosse's telescopes

Lord Rosse had a variety of optical reflecting telescopes built. Rosse's telescopes used cast
speculum metal Speculum metal is a mixture of around two-thirds copper and one-third tin, making a white brittle alloy that can be polished to make a highly reflective surface. It was used historically to make different kinds of mirrors from personal grooming ...
ground parabolically and polished. *15-inch (38 cm) *24-inch (61 cm) *36-inch (91 cm) (aka Rosse 3-foot telescope) *72-inch (180 cm) (aka Rosse 6-foot telescope or "Leviathan of Parsonstown"), started in 1842 and completed in 1845.


References


External links

*
A list of galaxies credited to Parsons for seeing first


* ttp://www.birrcastle.com/ Website of Birr Castle, where the telescope was located, has some historical info {{DEFAULTSORT:Rosse, William Parsons, 3rd Earl of 1800 births 1867 deaths Parsons, William, 3rd Earl of Rosse Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford Chancellors of the University of Dublin English people of Irish descent Parsons, William, 3rd Earl of Rosse Irish representative peers Knights of St Patrick Lord-Lieutenants of King's County Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for King's County constituencies (1801–1922) Alumni of Trinity College Dublin People from County Cork People from York Presidents of the Royal Society Royal Medal winners UK MPs 1820–1826 UK MPs 1826–1830 UK MPs 1830–1831 UK MPs 1831–1832 UK MPs 1832–1835 UK MPs who inherited peerages People from Birr, County Offaly Honorary members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences Earls of Rosse (1806 creation) Scientists from Yorkshire