Galileo Galilei became the first person to observe the planet Neptune, although he mistakenly catalogued it as a fixed star.

Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei, commonly referred to as Galileo Galilei or mononymously as Galileo, was an Italian astronomer, physicist, and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. He was born in the city of Pisa, then part of the Duchy of Florence. Galileo has been called the father of observational astronomy, modern-era classical physics, the scientific method, and modern science.

Neptune is the eighth and farthest known planet orbiting the Sun. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 times the mass of Earth. Compared to Uranus, its neighbouring ice giant, Neptune is slightly smaller, but more massive and denser. Being composed primarily of gases and liquids, it has no well-defined solid surface. Neptune orbits the Sun once every 164.8 years at an orbital distance of 30.1 astronomical units. It is named after the Roman god of the sea and has the astronomical symbol , representing Neptune's trident.

In astronomy, the fixed stars are the luminary points, mainly stars, that appear not to move relative to one another against the darkness of the night sky in the background. This is in contrast to those lights visible to the naked eye, namely the planets and comets, which appear to move slowly among those "fixed" stars. The fixed stars include all the stars visible to the naked eye other than the Sun, as well as the faint band of the Milky Way. Due to their star-like appearance when viewed with the naked eye, the few visible individual nebulae and other deep-sky objects are also counted among the fixed stars. Approximately 6,000 stars are visible to the naked eye under optimal conditions.