Astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers first observed the asteroid Vesta. The name was actually given to it by Gauss, who in just 10 hours calculated (by hand, of course) the orbit of the new (gigantic) asteroid. Vesta is the daughter of Saturn, sister to Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto, Ceres, and Juno (Juno, an asteroid discovered three years earlier). It was indeed a golden age for asteroid discovery: three years earlier, Karl Ludwig Harding had discovered the asteroid Juno, five years earlier, Olbers had discovered Pallas (or Pallas), and six years earlier, Ceres (or Ceres).
