The German astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (1784-1846) established the modern ideals and standards of precision in astronomy and obtained the first measurement of the distance to a star.

Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel was born in Minden, North Rhine-Westphalia, on July 22, 1784. After a rather undistinguished schooling, he was apprenticed to a Bremen merchant house at the age of 15. In the course of his bookkeeping work, he acquired a facility in mathematics, and this, together with an interest in astronomy, led him to compute the orbit of Halley's comet from old observations made by T. Harriott of the comet's 1607 circuit. His results were published in a professional journal. This evidence of his ability gained him entry into the profession, starting as an assistant in the private observatory of J. H. Schroter in Lillienthal in 1806. Bessel became the outstanding astronomer of the 19th century and probably the most complete astronomer of all...