This coming Tuesday November 15, Slough Museum will be marking what would have been the 284th birthday of William Herschel.

William who? For those who know, Slough Museum are central to celebrating this astronomer, for those who don’t we are spreading the word about this significant figure in the history of Slough and the universe.

For everyone – its free to come and join us at The Curve from 7.30 for music, art, history, astronomy - and cake.

Throughout 2022 Slough Museum - in partnership with The Herschel Museum of Astronomy in Bath, The Royal Astronomical Society, The Curve Slough, and St Laurence’s Church, Slough – have marked the 200th anniversary of the death of William Herschel – who lived, built telescopes, explored the cosmos, discovered infra red, married and is buried in Slough.

With thanks to Lottery Players, National Lottery Heritage Fund and Arts Council England.

This is the final event in our Herschel 200 programme and will include a performance with the Herschel Stars Choir, the Slough Community Youth Soul Choir, The Curve Choir and Slough based musicians.

You can also come and make a cyanotype with visual artist Lynda Laird.

Cyanotype is a photographic printing process that produces a cyan-blue print as a way of reproducing astronomical and mathematical notes and diagrams.

It was invented by William’s son, John Herschel and is so is another great example of Slough as a place of pioneers and inventors.

Engineers used the process well into the 20th century as a simple and low-cost way of producing copies of architectural plans, known as blueprints.

The process uses two chemicals: ammonium iron citrate plus potassium ferricyanide that gives its deep blue quality.

Born in Slough in 1792, John Herschel took up astronomy in the town, building telescopes and cataloguing the universe with his father William Herschel and his aunt Caroline Herschel.

They worked from Observatory House which once stood on the corner of Herschel Street and Windsor Road.

He also made numerous important contributions to photography and photographic processes., was the first to coin the term photography within the European scientific community and was the first to apply the terms negative and positive to photography.

Check out www.sloughmuseum.co.uk or @SloughMuseum on Twitter for more information.

You can get tickets from https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/william-herschels-birthday-celebration-tickets