FRIEDRICH WILHELM BESSEL, the great German astronomer, was born on July 22, 1784, at Minden, about thirty miles east of Hanover. An aptitude for figures and a distaste for Latin led to his apprenticeship in his fifteenth year to a mercantile house in Bremen. Here he acquired a knowledge of English and Spanish, studied geography and navigation, and from these subjects he “groped his way into a new world of astronomy and mathematics”. The works of Bode, von Zach and Lalande were his companions, and by their aid he deduced an orbit for Halley's Comet. The result he sent to Olbers, who immediately sent it to von Zach for publication, and thus Bessel's name became known. In 1805, Harding, Schröter's assistant at Lilienthal, was transferred to Göttingen, and Bessel, whose success in business was assured, renounced the prospect of comparative affluence for “poverty and the stars”. Five years later he was chosen by the Prussian Government to superintend the erection of the new observatory at Königsberg, on the completion of which he was appointed director. Through his labours this establishment became the chief of German observatories and a centre of improvement for the whole astronomical world. Bessel remained at Königsberg for the rest of his life and died there on March 17, 1846.