Sir William Huggins

Sir William Huggins 1824-1910, English astronomer. Using a spectroscope, he began to study the chemical constitution of stars from the observatory attached to his home in Tulse Hill, London. He proved that while some nebulae are clusters of stars, others are uniformly gaseous. Huggins pioneered in spectroscopic photography and played a part in developing the combined use of the telescope, spectroscope, and photographic negative. He adapted the gelatin dry-plate negative for making astronomical photographs; this made possible exposures of any desired length. In 1866, Huggins made the first spectroscopic observations of a nova. He applied the Doppler effect to the measurement of stellar motions in the line of sight. Huggins was president (1900-1906) of the Royal Society. With his wife, Margaret Lindsay Murray, Lady Huggins, he prepared an Atlas of Representative Stellar Spectra (1899).

Huggins, William (1824–1910)English amateur astronomer and spectroscopist. Inspired by G. R.Kirchhoff's achievements, he carried out a series of pioneering spectroscopic observations, helped by the chemist William Allen Miller (1817–70) and later by his wife, Margaret Lindsay Huggins, née Murray (1848–1915). By 1863 he had several stellar spectra, showing that the stars, like the Sun, consisted of incandescent gas and contained the same chemical elements as are found on Earth. In 1864 he detected green lines in the spectrum of the Orion Nebula which confirmed that it is gaseous, although he attributed the bright lines to an unknown substance which he termed ‘nebulium’. These early observations were all made visually; later he turned to photography as photographic plates improved. Huggins investigated many other objects spectroscopically, including comets, meteors, and novae.