Uranus had been observed on many occasions before its discovery as a planet, but it was generally mistaken for a star. The earliest recorded sighting was in 1690 when John Flamsteed observed the planet at least six times, cataloging it as 34 Tauri. The French astronomer, Pierre Lemonnier, observed Uranus at least twelve times between 1750 and 1769,[17] including on four consecutive nights. Sir William Herschel observed the planet on 13 March 1781 while in the garden of his house at 19 New King Street in the town of Bath, Somerset (now the Herschel Museum of Astronomy),[18] but initially reported it (on 26 April 1781) as a "comet".[19] Herschel "engaged in a series of observations on the parallax of the fixed stars",[20] using a telescope of his own design. He recorded in his journal "In the quartile near ζ Tauri … either [a] Nebulous star or perhaps a comet".[21] On March 17, he noted, "I looked for the Comet or Nebulous Star and found that it is a Comet, for it has changed its place".[22] When he presented his discovery to the Royal Society, he continued to assert that he had found a comet while also implicitly comparing it to a planet:[23] “ The power I had on when I first saw the comet was 227. From experience I know that the diameters of the fixed stars are not proportionally magnified with higher powers, as planets are; therefore I now put the powers at 460 and 932, and found that the diameter of the comet increased in proportion to the power, as it ought to be, on the supposition of its not being a fixed star, while the diameters of the stars to which I compared it were not increased in the same ratio. Moreover, the comet being magnified much beyond what its light would admit of, appeared hazy and ill-defined with these great powers, while the stars preserved that lustre and distinctness which from many thousand observations I knew they would retain. The sequel has shown that my surmises were well-founded, this proving to be the Comet we have lately observed. ” Herschel notified the Astronomer Royal, Nevil Maskelyne, of his discovery and received this flummoxed reply from him on April 23: "I don't know what to call it. It is as likely to be a regular planet moving in an orbit nearly circular to the sun as a Comet moving in a very eccentric ellipsis. I have not yet seen any coma or tail to it".[24] While Herschel continued to cautiously describe his new object as a comet, other astronomers had already begun to suspect otherwise. Russian astronomer Anders Johan Lexell estimated its distance as 18 times the distance of the Sun from the Earth, and no comet had yet been observed with a perihelion of even four times the Earth–Sun distance.[25] Berlin astronomer Johann Elert Bode described Herschel's discovery as "a moving star that can be deemed a hitherto unknown planet-like object circulating beyond the orbit of Saturn".[26] Bode concluded that its near-circular orbit was more like a planet than a comet.[27] The object was soon universally accepted as a new planet. By 1783, Herschel himself acknowledged this fact to Royal Society president Joseph Banks: "By the observation of the most eminent Astronomers in Europe it appears that the new star, which I had the honour of pointing out to them in March 1781, is a Primary Planet of our Solar System."[28] In recognition of his achievement, King George III gave Herschel an annual stipend of £200 on the condition that he move to Windsor so that the Royal Family could have a chance to look through his telescopes.[29] Naming Maskelyne asked Herschel to "do the astronomical world the faver [sic] to give a name to your planet, which is entirely your own, & which we are so much obliged to you for the discovery of."[30] In response to Maskelyne's request, Herschel decided to name the object Georgium Sidus (George's Star), or the "Georgian Planet" in honour of his new patron, King George III.[31] He explained this decision in a letter to Joseph Banks:[28] William Herschel, discoverer of Uranus“ In the fabulous ages of ancient times the appellations of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were given to the Planets, as being the names of their principal heroes and divinities. In the present more philosophical era it would hardly be allowable to have recourse to the same method and call it Juno, Pallas, Apollo or Minerva, for a name to our new heavenly body. The first consideration of any particular event, or remarkable incident, seems to be its chronology: if in any future age it should be asked, when this last-found Planet was discovered? It would be a very satisfactory answer to say, 'In the reign of King George the Third. ” Herschel's proposed name was not popular outside of Britain, and alternatives were soon proposed. Astronomer Jérôme Lalande proposed the planet be named Herschel in honour of its discoverer.[32] Bode, however, opted for Uranus, the Latinized version of the Greek god of the sky, Ouranos. Bode argued that just as Saturn was the father of Jupiter, the new planet should be named after the father of Saturn.[29][33][34] In 1789, Bode's Royal Academy colleague Martin Klaproth named his newly–discovered element "uranium" in support of Bode's choice.[35] Ultimately, Bode's suggestion became the most widely used, and became universal in 1850 when HM Nautical Almanac Office, the final holdout, switched from using Georgium Sidus to Uranus.[33] Nomenclature The pronunciation of the name Uranus preferred among astronomers is /ˈjʊərənəs/,[36] with stress on the first syllable as in Latin Ūranus;[37] in contrast to the colloquial /jʊˈreɪnəs/,[38] with stress on the second syllable and a long a, though both are considered acceptable. Because, in the English-speaking world, ū·rā′·nəs sounds like "your anus", the former pronunciation also saves embarrassment: as Dr. Pamela Gay, an astronomer at Southern Illinois University, noted on her podcast, so as avoid "being made fun of by any small schoolchildren ... when in doubt, don't emphasise anything and just say ūr′·ə·nəs. And then run, quickly."[39] Uranus is the only planet whose name is derived from a figure from Greek mythology rather than Roman mythology. The adjective of Uranus is "Uranian". Its astronomical symbol is . It is a hybrid of the symbols for Mars and the Sun because Uranus was the Sky in Greek mythology, which was thought to be dominated by the combined powers of the Sun and Mars.[40] Its astrological symbol is , suggested by Lalande in 1784. In a letter to Herschel, Lalande described it as "un globe surmonté par la première lettre de votre nom" ("a globe surmounted by the first letter of your name").[32] In the Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese languages, the planet's name is literally translated as the sky king star (天王星).[41][42] Orbit and rotation HST image of Uranus showing cloud bands, rings, and moonsUranus revolves around the Sun once every 84 Earth years. Its average distance from the Sun is roughly 3 billion km (about 20 AU). The intensity of sunlight on Uranus is about 1/400 that on Earth.[43] Its orbital elements were first calculated in 1783 by Pierre-Simon Laplace.[25] With time, discrepancies began to appear between the predicted and observed orbits, and in 1841, John Couch Adams first proposed that the differences might be due to the gravitational tug of an unseen planet. In 1845, Urbain Le Verrier began his own independent research into Uranus's orbit. On September 23, 1846, Johann Gottfried Galle located a new planet, later named Neptune, at nearly the position predicted by Le Verrier.[44] The rotational period of the interior of Uranus is 17 hours, 14 minutes. However, as on all giant planets, its upper atmosphere experiences very strong winds in the direction of rotation. In effect, at some latitudes, such as about two-thirds of the way from the equator to the south pole, visible features of the atmosphere move much faster, making a full rotation in as little as 14 hours.[45] Axial tilt Uranus's axis of rotation lies on its side with respect to the plane of the Solar System, with an axial tilt of 97.77 degrees. This gives it seasonal changes completely unlike those of the other major planets. Other planets can be visualized to rotate like tilted spinning tops relative to the plane of the solar system, while Uranus rotates more like a tilted rolling ball. Near the time of Uranian solstices, one pole faces the Sun continuously while the other pole faces away. Only a narrow strip around the equator experiences a rapid day-night cycle, but with the Sun very low over the horizon as in the Earth's polar regions. At the other side of Uranus's orbit the orientation of the poles towards the Sun is reversed. Each pole gets around 42 years of continuous sunlight, followed by 42 years of darkness.[46] Near the time of the equinoxes, the Sun faces the equator of Uranus giving a period of day-night cycles similar to those seen on most of the other planets. Uranus reached its most recent equinox on 7 December 2007.[47][48]