Giuseppe built an observatory at Palermo and mapped the positions of more than 7,000 stars. He is also credited with discovering the first asteroid, in 1801, which he named Ceres, after Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture and motherly love. Within the next few years, astronomers discovered three more asteroids: Pallas, Juno, and Vesta. The thousandth asteroid discovered was named Piazzi in his honor. The popular musical "The Light in the Piazzi" wasn't named for him.
With his powerful telescope, he also enjoyed watching bathers frolic on the Mondello beach outside Palermo.
Coincidentally, today is also the anniversary (1969) of the launch of Apollo 11, a mission that used a big rocket to propel three humans into space, two of whom had a brief picnic on the moon. They didn't even bother to clean up after themselves before coming home.
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