HUGGINS; William; 1824-1910; GBR

At 30, Huggins sold the family business and constructed a private observatory in London's suburbs. After the discovery of spectral lines by BUNSEN and KIRCHHOFF, he decided to compare laboratory spectra and stellar spectra. First visually and then photographically, he explored the spectrum of stars, nebulae and even comets. In 1864, he discovered the gazeous origins of some nebulae (pure emission spectra) and that allowed to discriminate star clusters and galaxies from real gazeous nebulae.