Charles Messier (whom Louis XV dubbed the "comet ferret") was once obliged to abandon his search for a certain comet in order to tend to his dying wife. Messier was soon dismayed to learn that the comet had been discovered by a rival astronomer, Montaigue of Limoges.
Some time later, a friend, hearing of his wife's death, expressed his sympathy for Messier's "loss." The astronomer nodded pensively. "To think that when I had discovered twelve," he said, tears pooling in his eyes, "this Montaigue should have got my thirteenth!"
[Because he so frequently mistook other celestial objects for comets, Messier compiled a list of 102 objects for comet-hunters to avoid. Ironically, he is now much more famous for this list -- whose items include the great Hercules Cluster of a million stars (Messier 13) and the great Andromeda galaxy of half a trillion stars (Messier 31) -- than for the twenty-one comets which he discovered (none of which is of much importance).]
[While napping in her living room one day in 1954, Mrs. Hewlett Hodges of Sylacuga, Alabama was abruptly awakened... by a meteorite falling on her!]
Sources
G. Murchie, Music of the Spheres; Isaac Asimov`s Book of Facts
