Benjamin Valz
Jean Elias Benjamin Valz (
May 27 1787 –
April 22 1867) was a
French astronomer.
He was born in
Nîmes and trained as an engineer. He became interested in
astronomy and
comets in particular, observing the return of what would later be named
Comet Encke. He later made a very complete calculation of the
orbital elements of another comet, for which he won recognition.
In
1835 he hypothesized that irregularities in
Comet Halley's orbit could be explained by an unknown planet beyond
Uranus—at the time,
Neptune was not yet discovered.
He build a private observatory at his home and when he went to take up a post as director of the
Marseille Observatory, he left his home to a young man named "
A. Laurent", who used the observatory to discover the
asteroid 51 Nemausa. The house, at 32 rue Nationale in Nîmes, has a plaque commemorating the discovery. [
1]
Valz himself was at one time said to be the discoverer of two asteroids,
20 Massalia and
25 Phocaea, but nowadays these are credited to the Italian astronomer
Annibale de Gasparis and to Valz's colleague
Jean Chacornac, respectively.
* http://www-obs.cnrs-mrs.fr/tricent/astronomes/valz.htm (in French)
