Joint WHS/BIS Lecture - William Herschel and the Rings of Uranus

It is generally believed that the rings around the planet Uranus were discovered during an occultation experiment in 1977. Remarkably, however, the first possible observations of a ring around Uranus may have been made by William Herschel some 180 years earlier.

This talk discusses the evidence, and then considers the factors that might have changed to prevent further observations of the rings.