Johann Gottfried Galle

Johann Gottfried Galle , 1812-1910, German astronomer. He is noted for his discovery of the planet Neptune, Sept. 23, 1846, by following the guidance of calculations by Leverrier . Galle was then a member of the staff of the Berlin Observatory and had discovered three comets. In 1851 he became professor of astronomy at Breslau and director of the observatory there. His particular field of research was meteorology.

Galle, JohannGottfried (1812–1910)Germanastronomer. On 1846September23, observing at the Berlin Observatory with the German astronomer Heinrich Ludwig d'Arrest (1822–75), he was the first to locate the planet Neptune, having started his search from a position supplied by U. J. J.Le Verrier. Galle observed Saturn's faint ‘cre^pe ring’ (the C Ring) in 1838, over a decade before W. C. and G. P.Bond He proposed that the solar parallax could be established from the parallax of asteroids, to which end he observed (8) Flora in 1873; the method was later used successfully by, in particular, D.Gill and H. SpencerJones. His computations of cometary orbits helped to establish the connection between comets and meteor showers.