Herschel discovers Titania and Oberon

Background. Frederick William Herschel (15 November 1738 – 25 August 1822) was a German–British astronomer and composer. From 1782 to 1802, and most intensively from 1783 to 1790, he conducted systematic surveys in search of "deep-sky" or non-stellar objects, using two 20-foot-focal-length telescopes of 12-inch and 18.7-inch aperture in combination with his favoured 6-inch-aperture instrument.

The Discovery. On 11 January 1787 Herschel discovered Titania, the largest moon of Uranus, and on the same night Oberon, the planet's second-largest moon. The two bodies were initially referred to as the first and second satellites of Uranus respectively, and for nearly fifty years neither was observed with any instrument other than Herschel's own.

Naming and Later Designations. The moons received no names at the time of discovery. In 1848 William Lassell, who had found Ariel and Umbriel the year before, assigned the designations Uranus I and Uranus II, though he sometimes used Herschel's numbering. In 1852 Herschel's son John suggested names from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream: Titania, the queen of the fairies, and Oberon, the fairy king.