January 1 1 January 1801 A painting of Giuseppe Piazzi pointing to Ceres, his discovery in the sky. In the collection of Palermo Astronomical Observatory. On January 1, 1801, Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi (1746–1826) from the observatory in Palermo, Sicily, discovered the first known asteroid, a dwarf planet (1) Ceres. Originally considered a planet, it was reclassified as an asteroid in the 1850s after the discovery of dozens of other objects in similar orbits. In 2006, it was reclassified again as a dwarf planet. Piazzi spotted the object while conducting observations for his star catalogue. A few months later he wrote: "...on the evening of the 1st of January of the current year, together with several other stars, I sought for the 87th of the Catalogue of the Zodiacal stars of Mr la ...