Johann Georg Palitzsch was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 astronomer

Astronomer

An astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...

 who became famous for recovering Comet 1P/Halley (better known as Halley's Comet or Comet Halley

Comet Halley

Halley's Comet or Comet Halley is the best-known of the short-period comets, and is visible from Earth every 75 to 76 years. Halley is the only short-period comet that is clearly visible to the naked eye from Earth, and thus the only naked-eye comet that might appear twice in a human lifetime...

) on Christmas Day, 1758. The periodic nature of this comet had been deduced by its namesake Edmond Halley

Edmond Halley

Edmond Halley FRS was an English astronomer, geophysicist, mathematician, meteorologist, and physicist who is best known for computing the orbit of the eponymous Halley's Comet. He was the second Astronomer Royal in Britain, following in the footsteps of John Flamsteed.-Biography and career:Halley...

 in 1705, but Halley had died before seeing if his prediction would come true.

Raised to become a successful farmer under a strict stepfather, Palitzsch secretly studied as much astronomy as he could from the books he could afford. He learned contemporary astronomy from the book "Vorhof der Sternwissenschaft" ("The Forecourt of Astronomy") by Christian Pescheck. He learned Latin and, at age 21, inherited the farm, which allowed him to construct his own botanical garden, library, laboratory, and museum.
He received support from various benefactors, including the future King. But the wars between Prussia and Austria interrupted his ambitions.

Upon his death on February 21, 1788 Palitzsch left behind a library of 3518 books, partly consisting of handwritten copies he had created from scientific works too expensive for him to purchase.

A crater

Impact crater

In the broadest sense, the term impact crater can be applied to any depression, natural or manmade, resulting from the high velocity impact of a projectile with a larger body...

 and a vallis (valley) on the Moon

Moon

The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...

 are named after him.

The asteroid

Asteroid

Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...

 11970 Palitzsch

11970 Palitzsch

11970 Palitzsch is a main-belt asteroid discovered on October 4, 1994 by P. Sicoli and P. Ghezzi at Sormano....

also is named after him.

External links

• Photo
• http://www.seds.org/messier/xtra/Bios/palitzsch.html
• Homepage of the Palitzsch-Museum