Johann Gottfried Galle
German astronomer
1812 CE to 1910 CE
Johann Gottfried Galle (9 June 1812 – 10 July 1910) is a German astronomer from Radis, Germany, at the Berlin Observatory who, on 23 September 1846, with the assistance of student Heinrich Louis d'Arrest, is the first person to view the planet Neptune and know what he is looking at.
He uses the calculations of Urbain Le Verrier to know where to look.
Born in Radis to Marie Henriette and Johann Gottfried Galle, Galle studies at the University of Berlin from 1830 to 1833.
He had started to work as an assistant to Johann Franz Encke in 1835 immediately following the completion of the Berlin observatory.
In 1851 he moves to Breslau (today Wrocław) to become professor of astronomy and the director of the local observatory.
Throughout his career, he studies comets, and in 1894 (with the help of his son Andreas Galle) he publishes a list with 414 comets.
He himself had previously discovered three comets in the short span from 2 December 1839 to 6 March 1840.
He dies in Potsdam at age 98.
Two craters, one on the Moon and the "happy face" one on Mars, the asteroid 2097 Galle, and a ring of Neptune have been named in his honor.
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The first person to view the planet Neptune, and know what he is looking at, is Johann Gottfried Galle, a German astronomer at the Berlin Observatory, with the assistance of student Heinrich Louis d'Arrest, on September 23, 1846.
Neptune's discovery had been predicted by British astronomer John Couch Adams and French astronomer Urbain Le Verrier.
William Lassell discovers Ariel and Umbriel, moons of Uranus, on October 24. 1851
Lassel had made his fortune as a beer brewer, which enabled him to indulge his interest in astronomy.
He built an observatory at his house "Starfield" in West Derby, a suburb of Liverpool.
Here he has a 24-inch (610 mm) reflector telescope, for which he has pioneered the use of an equatorial mount for easy tracking of objects as the Earth rotates.
He ground and polished the mirror himself, using equipment he constructed.
The observatory will later (1854) be moved further out of Liverpool, to Bradstone.
In 1846 Lassell had discovered Triton, the largest moon of Neptune, just seventeen days after the discovery of Neptune itself by German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle.
In 1848 he had independently co-discovered Hyperion, a moon of Saturn.