Uranian Rings a Georgian Era Find?

This kind of history fascinates me. Was William Herschel, official discoverer of the planet Uranus, also the first to glimpse its rings?

The conventional time table is that the rings were confirmed in 1977 when starlight passed between them and the Earth, allowing a series of dimmings and brightenings to be interpreted as ring structure.

However, Dr Stuart Eves will challenge conventional wisdom by presenting evidence that the Eighteenth century astronomer got enough things right about something he saw. Maybe Herschel really did view them in 1797.

The most important suggestion is that Cassini has seen enough of the Saturnian neighborhood to suggest that planetary rings are very dynamic and can change in density and brightness over relatively short periods of time.

This lies along the same theme as Galileo’s seventeenth century observation of Neptune. He actually tracked the movement of the eighth planet 233 years before it was identified. But he had no reference point for claiming it was in the same category as the other planets–all of which were brightly manifesting to the unaided eye at the time.