Giuseppe Piazzi
(July 7,1746 -July 22,1826) Giuseppe Piazzi was an
astronomer. He was born in
Ponter (Veltlin) on
July 7,
1746, and died in
Naples on
July 22,
1826. He established an observatory at
Palermo.
On
January 1,
1801, Piazzi discovered a stellar object that moved against the background of
stars, which he first thought was a new
comet. He was not able to observe it long enough to compute its
orbit with existing methods, but the renowned mathematician
Carl Friedrich Gauss developed a new method of orbit calculation that allowed astronomers to locate it again. After its orbit was better determined, it was clear that the object was not a comet but more like a small
planet. It was also almost exactly where the
Titius-Bode law predicted a planet would be.
Piazzi named it "Ceres Ferdinandea", after the Classical Greek and Sicilian
goddess of grain and
King Ferdinand IV of
Naples and
Sicily. The Ferdinandea part was later dropped for political reasons.
Ceres turned out to be the first, and largest, of the
asteroids existing within the
Asteroid Belt.
Taken from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Piazzi Also see:
http://reference.allrefer.com/encyclopedia/P/Piazzi-G.htmlhttp://astroinfo.port5.com/p/giuseppe_piazzi.htmlwww.lpi.usra.edu/books/AsteroidsIII/pdf/3027.pdf
