Asaph Hall: American born, American taught, American Legend
Asaph was born in Connecticut to a very important family. His grandfather was actually a Revolutionary War officer and state legislator. However, his immediate family suffered the death of the man of the house and Hall was responsible for making money very early in his life. He found a job as a carpenter. Later he went to school and was a brilliant mathematician. Lastly, he was found to be a good computer of orbits and found a proclivity for astronomy which is where he would gain his fame.
Hall was given the largest refracting telescope at the time for observations. This is how he went about making his two most integral additions to the astronomical field: he discovered Phobos and Deimos. He also did work on Saturn's abnormal moon Hyperion. Here he discovered that hyperion was retrograding 20% a year.
One very fascinating fact about Asaph is that he is considered to be largely self taught. He did not recieve very much formal education in astronomy. He simply applied his mathematical knowledge to the field which helped him climb the scientific ladder to become a scientific celebrity. To illustrate just that, it is interesting to realize that he was named Naval Observatory's Professor of Mathematics by President Abraham Lincoln.
He published over 500 papers. He studied double stars. He calculated the mass of Mars. All of these things were done on what was basically his inate astronomical knowledge which makes him one of the most interesting astronomers ever in my opinion.
