Uranus was the first planet to be discovered since the use of the telescope. It was discovered by accident, when William Herschet observing from Bath, England, set about remeasuring all the major stars with his 6 in reflector telescope. In 1781 he noticed an unusually bright object in the zodiacal constellation of Gemini. At first he assumed it was a nebula and then a comet, but it moved in a peculiar way. The name of Uranus was suggested by the German astronomer Johann Bode, who proposed that the planet be named after the father of Saturn, in line with established classical traditions. Bode is also famous as the creator of Bode's law-a mathematical formula that predicted roughly where planets should lie.
