‘BAA’ asteroids

[Michael O’Connell]

Hi Folks,

Just wondering if we have a list of past or current BAA members who have asteroids named in their honour, or who have discovered any themselves?

Thanks,

Michael.

[Richard Miles]

Hi Michael.

About 14 years ago I started to compile such a list in the form of a spreadsheet but gave up as it was, at that time, difficult to find all the necessary info. Since then the Web has gone from strength to strength and it is definitely much easier to glean that information. If you like we could work together to update my original spreadsheet? Are you keen to give it a go? We would just work together under data protection rules to achieve this.

I had an ulterior reason for compiling the list – that is to run a project under ARPS to observe these objects and to discover their rotation rates. Fortunately we now know these values for some thousands of asteroids and so maybe a lot less work would be involved than originally envisaged. 

[Michael O’Connell]

Richard,

Yea, I’m game for that.

I suspect you have a significant head start on me – I’m only a newbie here (<10 yrs as BAA member).

I’m currently compiling a similar list for Ireland and then thought it would be a ‘good idea’ to do a BAA list as well – famous last words! 😉

I suspect it may involve quite a bit of work!

Michael.

[Richard Miles]

Michael – Great!

There are various lists of asteroids named after people but the key is to use the citation to verify such a name refers to an actual BAA member and not just a person having teh same name as a member.

On the subject of discoverers who are members, it used to be a pain finding out who had discovered one or more asteroids, but not anymore since last September the following page has appeared on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minor_planet_discoverers

Richard

[Michael O’Connell]

Thanks Richard.

I came across that website as well – very useful.

As you rightly pointed out, one of the main challenges is searching the citations.

For example, for my work researching ‘Irish’ asteroids, the definition is of course subject to various categories:

– Discovered by Irish people

– Discovered in Ireland

– Named after Irish people or places

– Named after people who are connected with Ireland

etc. the list goes on.

In this case, I am assuming the island of Ireland, which adds its own complexities wrt nationality, as I’m sure you can imagine.

Regards & Thanks,

Michael.

[Author]

Posts