15 November: Sir William Herschel

Sir William Herschel, the German astronomer and composer was born on this date in 1738. He's most famous for discovering Uranus and its two moons, and studying nebulae. 10 facts about him:

1. He was born in Hanover, Germany, one of ten children. He was called Friedrich Wilhelm, only using the names Frederick William after he moved to England.
2. His father, Isaac, played the oboe in the Hanover Military Band, and two of his sons, William and Jakob, followed in his footsteps. It was during a war with France that William and his brother were sent to England by his father to protect them.
3. His main occupation in England was that of musician. He played the Violin, harpsichord and organ as well as the oboe. He played with an orchestra in Sunderland, led a military band in Durham and composed a number of symphonies. Later he became the organist at a church in Halifax, and then at the Octagon Chapel in Bath.
4. As his interest in astronomy grew, he began building his own Telescopes. He was known to spend up to 16 hours a day grinding and polishing the lenses.
5. He found Uranus while searching for double stars. He stumbled upon an object that looked like a disc. At first, he thought it was a comet and continued observing it, eventually reporting his observations to the then Astronomer Royal.
6. He discovered over 2,400 nebulae and catalogued them. His system for classifying nebulae is still in use today.
7. When their father died, William invited his sister Caroline to join him in Bath. She became his assistant, spending many hours polishing the mirrors in his telescopes and copying out his observations notes. She became interested in astronomy herself and made significant discoveries of her own.
8. He believed in aliens. He believed there was life on the Moon and that it was probably similar to pastoral England. He believed there was probably life on the other planets, too, and even in the interior of the Sun.
9. While famous for his telescopes, Herschel made a significant discovery using a microscope, too - he established that Coral was not, as many scientists then believed, a plant, because it didn't have plant-like cell walls.
10. There is a long list of things named after William Herschel including craters on both the Moon and Mars, an Asteroid, a space observatory, a street in Paris and a pub in Slough, where he lived towards the end of his life. The symbol for the planet Uranus features an H, his initial, and the shape of Slough bus station is based on one of his experiments.

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Terry Kennedy is inexplicably and inexorably drawn to the small town of Fiveswood as a place to live and work after university. He is sure he has never visited the town before, but when he arrives there, it seems oddly familiar.

Fiveswood has a rich and intriguing history. Local legends speak of giants, angels, wolves, a local Robin Hood, but most of all, a knight in golden armour. Fiveswood's history also has a dark side - mysterious deaths blamed on the plague, a ghostly black panther, and a landslide which buried the smugglers' caves.

Terry buys an apartment in The Heights, a house which has been empty for decades, since the previous owner disappeared. Now he has finally been declared dead, developers have moved in and turned it into six flats. Terry has the odd feeling he has lived in this enigmatic house before. But that is not all. Since childhood, Terry has had recurring, disturbing dreams which have been increasing in frequency so that now, he has them almost every night. To his dismay, the people from his nightmares are his new neighbours.

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