Philibert Jacques Melotte
| 676 Melitta | 16 January 1909 | MPC |
Philibert Jacques Melotte (29 January 1880 – 30 March 1961) was a British astronomer.
Early life
[edit]Melotte was born in Camden Town, North London to Belgian parents who emigrated from Namur. His father was a lecturer. Melotte attended the Roan School in Greenwich. He entered the Royal Observatory in 1895 and passed his examination in 1902.[2][3]
Career
[edit]In 1908 he discovered a moon of Jupiter, today known as Pasiphae. It was simply designated "Jupiter VIII" and was not given its present name until 1975. The outer main-belt asteroid 676 Melitta, the only asteroid he discovered,[1] is named after the Attic form of the Greek Melissa, the bee, but its resemblance to the discoverer's name is not fortuitous.[4]
The conspicuous star cluster in the Coma Berenices constellation is commonly designated Mel 111 since it appeared in Melotte's 1915 catalogue of star clusters,[5] but not in Charles Messier's famous catalogue of deep sky objects or in the New General Catalogue since it was not proved to be a true cluster until 1938 by the astronomer R J Trumpler.[6]
Melotte was awarded the Jackson-Gwilt Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1909. A collection of his papers is held at Cambridge University Library.
See also
[edit]- List of astronomical catalogues
- Collinder catalogue - a similar catalogue of open star clusters published by Per Collinder in 1931.
References
[edit]- 1 2 "Minor Planet Discoverers (by number)". Minor Planet Center. 23 May 2016. Retrieved 22 June 2016.
- ↑ "Obituary: Philibert Jacques Melotte F.R.A.S." (PDF). British Astrology. Retrieved 6 October 2025.
- ↑ Hunter, A. (March 1962). "Obituary Notices: Philibert Jacques Melotte" (PDF). Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society. 3: 48. Bibcode:1962QJRAS...3...48. Retrieved 22 June 2016.
- ↑ Schmadel, Lutz D. (2007). "(676) Melitta". Dictionary of Minor Planet Names – (676) Melitta. Springer Berlin Heidelberg. p. 66. doi:10.1007/978-3-540-29925-7_677. ISBN 978-3-540-00238-3.
- ↑ Melotte, P. J. "A Catalogue of Star Clusters shown on Franklin-Adams Chart Plates", MmRAS, 1915
- ↑ The Coma Berenices star cluster Archived 17 June 2007 at the Wayback Machine (Melotte 111)
External links
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