Oberon (moon) - Discovery and Naming

Discovery and Naming

Oberon was discovered by William Herschel on January 11, 1787; on the same day he discovered Uranus's largest moon, Titania. He later reported the discoveries of four more satellites, although they were subsequently revealed as spurious. For nearly fifty years following their discovery, Titania and Oberon would not be observed by any instrument other than William Herschel's, although the moon can be seen from Earth with a present-day high-end amateur telescope.

All of the moons of Uranus are named after characters created by William Shakespeare or Alexander Pope. The name Oberon was derived from Oberon, the King of the Fairies in A Midsummer Night's Dream. The names of all four satellites of Uranus then known were suggested by Herschel's son John in 1852, at the request of William Lassell, who had discovered the other two moons, Ariel and Umbriel, the year before. The adjectival form of the name is Oberonian, /ˌɒbəˈroʊniən/.

Oberon was initially referred to as "the second satellite of Uranus", and in 1848 was given the designation Uranus II by William Lassell, although he sometimes used William Herschel's numbering (where Titania and Oberon are II and IV). In 1851 Lassell eventually numbered all four known satellites in order of their distance from the planet by Roman numerals, and since then Oberon has been designated Uranus IV.