Discovery of the First Asteroid, Ceres

Clifford J. Cunningham did his Ph.D. work in the history of astronomy at James Cook University and the University of Southern Queensland in Australia, and he is affiliated with the National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand. He has written or edited 13 books on the history of astronomy, and his papers have been published in many major journals, including Annals of Science, Journal for the History of Astronomy, Culture & Cosmos, Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, Studia Etymologica Cracoviensia, The Asian Journal of Physics and The Milton Quarterly. Asteroid (4276) was named Clifford in his honour by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

The Unseen Planet.- The Discovery of Ceres.- The Recovery of Ceres.- The Great Nomenclature Controversy of 1801.- The Physical Properties of Ceres.- How Did The Public Learn About Ceres?.- Piazzi's Monographs.- Bode's Book of 1802.- Schroeter's Book of 1805.- British Correspondence About Ceres.- Letters between Piazzi and Oriani.- Letters Between Olbers and Bode.- Zach's Ceres Correspondence.- Other Ceres Correspondence.- Appendix 1: A Description of the Ramsden Circle.-Appendix 2: The Events of 1801.- Appendix 3: The Historical Development of the Orbital Elements of Ceres.- Appendix 4: Star Atlases.

"In this book, the first of four planned on the discovery of asteroids, Cunningham minutely examines the work of astronomers around 1800. ... This extensive collection of transcriptions and translations makes Cunningham's work a valuable sourcebook for historians of nineteenth-century astronomy." (Benjamin Mirwald, Journal for the History of Astronomy, Vol. 48 (3), 2017)

"This is an important book in the history of asteroid research. Relying upon a profound inquiry based on primary sources, the author reconstructs the scientific milieu as well as the personal relations behind the discovery of Ceres and the way in which the discovery was spread among scientists. ... Presenting both narrative, sources, and other data, this is a comprehensive and useful look at a most important incident in the history of astronomy." (Paolo Bussotti, BSHM Bulletin, 2017)

"The author has a PhD in the History of Astronomy, he is a dedicated scholar of the history of asteroids and his research on the discovery of Ceres is comprehensive and fully sourced. ... Here, for the first time, you will find everything in a sigle place, together with the relative documentation like, for example, the letters that scientists exchanged each others. ... the reading is enjoyable and engaging, even for the nonspecialists." (Gabriella Bernardi, Astrocom et al., astrocometal.blogspot.de, November, 2016)