[Blue Skies (Jacquie)]

I'm writing up an article for the local society on Gemini and was going to include a well-worn paragraph about how Uranus was in Gemini at discovery. But where in Gemini? Pluto was near delta Geminorum when discovered, but no one ever really says where Uranus was. So I decided I should dig around a bit further ...and found out that in the sky as we know it today it was Taurus at the time.

Before you run off on speculation, consider the following: Depending on what Epoch and dating system you use, Uranus was either at 5h 36m RA or 5h 49m RA (on 13 March 1781). Both positions are well within the modern day boundaries of Taurus, not far from the Crab Nebula, M1. I find most people forget that the constellations we use today were agreed upon in 1930 and before that time constellation boundaries tended to be a bit loose and open to interpretation. To confuse things (and don't kill me here) in astrological terms Uranus was at 24 deg 27 min of Gemini. Could this be where the confusion comes from? Or were the boundaries of Gemini in Herschel's day far different to our own? Anyone with better historical knowledge about this? The internet is letting me down on it at the moment.