  One of the mayor topics in astronomy at the beginning of the 19th century was
the interpretation of the observations of the first asteroids. In 1810
Christian Ludwig Gerling at the age of twenty two came to G\"ottingen
University to continue his academic studies. Supervised by Carl Friedrich
Gau{\ss} at the observatory he was engaged in studies of theoretical and
practical astronomy. Starting in 1812 Gerling accepted the responsibility for
collecting observational data of the asteroid Vesta from the European
observatories and for calculating the ephemeris of this new minor planet. In
1817 Gerling was appointed professor at Marburg University. One of his early
astronomical projects in Marburg was his contribution to the Berliner
Akademische Sternkarten. After completion of his observatory in 1841 Gerling's
students started observing and theoretically analysing the orbits of the
continuously newly discovered asteroids including the perturbation of the
larger solar system bodies. The observations at Gerling's observatory are the
first astrometric measurements of solar systems minor bodies of Hesse.
