William Ball (astronomer)

In 1655, when the Rings of Saturn had apparently disappeared due to being seen edge-on from Earth, Ball and his brother Peter observed them as a band (or "fascia") upon the planet.

In 1666 he retired to his estate in Devon and in 1668 married Mary Posthuma Hussey, they raised six children.

Managing his family's estate together with its distance from London left little time to follow his scientific interests.

[3] In a summary of Ball's observations of Saturn in 1665, his colleague Robert Moray remarked that there appeared "not one body of a Circular Figure, that embraces his Disk, but two".

[2] This cryptic remark resulted in the mid-19th century in a claim that Ball had observed what is now known as the Cassini Division in Saturn's rings, ten years before Cassini did himself, and that the feature should more correctly be known as "Ball's Division".