Johann Gottfried Galle

Johann Gottfried Galle (9 June 1812 – 10 July 1910) was a German astronomer from Radis, Germany, at the Berlin Observatory who, on 23 September 1846, with the assistance of student Heinrich Louis d'Arrest, was the first person to view the planet Neptune and know what he was looking at. He used the calculations of Urbain Le Verrier to know where to look.

Born in Radis to Marie Henriette and Johann Gottfried Galle, Galle studied 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 moved to Breslau (today Wrocław) to become professor of astronomy and the director of the local observatory.

Throughout his career he studied comets, and in 1894 (with the help of his son Andreas Galle) he published 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 died 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.