Richard Martin West

Minor planets discovered: 40 [1]
see § List of discovered minor planets

Richard Martin West (born 1941) is a Danish astronomer and discoverer of astronomical objects with a long career at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and at the International Astronomical Union (IAU).

He discovered numerous comets, including Comet West (C/1975 V1), which was one of the brightest comets of the 1970s,[2] and the periodic comets 76P/West–Kohoutek–Ikemura and 123P/West–Hartley.

He is also credited by the Minor Planet Center with the discovery of 40 minor planets between 1976 and 1986,[1] including 2146 Stentor and 2148 Epeios, two Trojan asteroids. Together with Hans-Emil Schuster, he co-discovered the Phoenix Dwarf galaxy.

  1. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference MPC-Discoverers was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Clube, Victor; Napier, Bill (1982-07-15). "Close encounters with a million comets". New Scientist. Retrieved 2012-01-08.