German astronomer and painter Hermann Goldschmidt was born #OTD in 1802.
He spent much of his life in France and, although starting out as a painter of historical scenes in Paris, he attended a lecture by Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier in 1847 which sparked off an interest in astronomy. He combined his artistic abilities with his love for astronomy to produce paintings both of the Great Comet of 1858. He also discovered a total of 14 asteroids.