Place: United Kingdom, England Subject : biography, astronomy English mathematician, physicist, and astronomer who not only identified the comet later to be known by his name, but also compiled a star catalogue, detected stellar motion using historical records, and began a line of research that - after his death - resulted in a reasonably accurate calculation of the astronomical unit. Halley was born in Haggerton, near London, on 8 November 1656. The son of a wealthy businessman, he attended St Paul's School (in London) and then Oxford University, where he wrote and published a book on the laws of Johannes Kepler that drew him to the attention of the Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed . Flamsteed's interest secured for him, despite his leaving Oxford without a degree, the opportunity to begin his scientific career by spending two years on the island of St Helena, charting (none too successfully) the hitherto unmapped stars of the southern hemisphere. The result was the first catalogue of…