Pierre Janssen - Wikipedia

On August 18, 1868, French Astronomer Pierre Janssen discovers helium in the solar spectrum during an eclipse. From the article:

"Life, work, and interests
Janssen was born in Paris into a cultivated family. His father, Antoine César Janssen (born in Paris, 1780 – 1860) was a well known clarinettist from Belgian descent (his father emigrated from Walloon Brabant to Paris). His mother Pauline Marie Le Moyne (1789 – 1871) was a daughter of the architect Paul Guillaume Le Moyne. Pierre Janssen studied mathematics and physics at the faculty of sciences. He taught at the Lycée Charlemagne in 1853, and in the school of architecture 1865 – 1871, but his energies were mainly devoted to various scientific missions entrusted to him. Thus in 1857 he went to Peru in order to determine the magnetic equator; in 1861 – 1862 and 1864, he studied telluric absorption in the solar spectrum in Italy and Switzerland; in 1867 he carried out optical and magnetic experiments at the Azores; he successfully observed both transits of Venus, that of 1874 in Japan, that of 1882 at Oran in Algeria; and he took part in a long series of solar eclipse-expeditions, e.g. to Trani (1867), Guntur (1868), Algiers (1870), Siam (1875), the Caroline Islands (1883), and to Alcosebre in Spain (1905). To see the eclipse of 1870, he escaped from the Siege of Paris in a balloon but the eclipse was obscured by cloud.

Discovery of helium
In 1868 Janssen discovered how to observe solar prominences without an eclipse. While observing the solar eclipse of 18 August 1868, at Guntur, Madras State (now in Andhra Pradesh), British India, he noticed bright lines in the spectrum of the chromosphere, showing that the chromosphere is gaseous. Present in the spectrum of the Sun, though not immediately noticed or commented upon, was a bright yellow line later measured to have a wavelength of 587.49 nm. This was the first observation of this particular spectral line, and one possible source for it was an element not yet discovered on the earth. From the brightness of the spectral lines, Janssen realized that the chromospheric spectrum could be observed even without an eclipse, and he proceeded to do so.

On 20 October, Joseph Norman Lockyer in England set up a new, relatively powerful spectroscope. He also observed the emission spectrum of the chromosphere, including the same yellow line. Within a few years, he worked with a chemist and they concluded that it could be caused by an unknown element, after unsuccessfully testing to see if it were some new type of hydrogen. This was the first time a chemical element was discovered on an extraterrestrial body before being found on the earth. Lockyer and the English chemist Edward Frankland named the element with the Greek word for the Sun, ἥλιος (helios)."