Michael E. Brown is an American astronomer, who has been professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) since 2003. His team has discovered many trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), including the dwarf planet Eris, which was originally thought to be bigger than Pluto, triggering a debate on the definition of a planet.
Maximilian Franz Joseph Cornelius Wolf was a German astronomer and a pioneer in the field of astrophotography. He was the chairman of astronomy at the University of Heidelberg and director of the Heidelberg-Königstuhl State Observatory from 1902 until his death in 1932.
David Clifford Jewitt is a British-American astronomer who studies the Solar System, especially its minor bodies. He is based at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he is a Member of the Institute for Geophysics and Planetary Physics, the Director of the Institute for Planets and Exoplanets, Professor of Astronomy in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and Professor of Astronomy in the Department of Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences. He is best known for being the first person to discover a body beyond Pluto and Charon in the Kuiper belt.
Virginia Louise Trimble is an American astronomer specializing in the structure and evolution of stars and galaxies, and the history of astronomy. She has published more than 600 works in Astrophysics, and dozens of other works in the history of other sciences. She is famous for an annual review of astronomy and astrophysics research that was published in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and often gives summary reviews at astrophysical conferences. In 2018, she was elected a Patron of the American Astronomical Society, for her many years of intellectual, organizational, and financial contributions to the society.
Yoshiaki Oshima is a Japanese astronomer at Gekko Observatory and prolific discoverer of 61 asteroids as credited by the Minor Planet Center, and include the binary asteroid 4383 Suruga, the potentially hazardous object (7753) 1988 XB and the Jupiter trojan 4715 Medesicaste.
Maura Tombelli is an Italian amateur astronomer who began her training in astronomy as an observer of variable stars. She is a prolific discoverer of almost 200 minor planets, including the main-belt asteroid 7794 Sanvito, and a member of the American Association of Variable Star Observers.
Lenka Kotková is a Czech astronomer and a discoverer of minor planets.
Peter Kušnirák is a Slovak astronomer, discoverer of minor planets, and a prolific photometrist of light-curves at Ondřejov Observatory in the Czech Republic. He was married to Slovak astronomer Ulrika Babiaková with whom he discovered 123647 Tomáško, named after their son Tomáško.
Robert H. McNaught is a Scottish-Australian astronomer at the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics of the Australian National University (ANU). He has collaborated with David J. Asher of the Armagh Observatory.
Jana Tichá is a Czech astronomer and discoverer of minor planets. She studied at the University of Economics in Prague and graduated in 1987. In 1992 she was selected for the position of a director of the Kleť Observatory.
Jane X. Luu is a Vietnamese-American astronomer and defense systems engineer. She was awarded the Kavli Prize for 2012 "for discovering and characterizing the Kuiper Belt and its largest members, work that led to a major advance in the understanding of the history of our planetary system".
Marco Cavagna was an Italian amateur astronomer.
Farm Cove Observatory (FCO) is an amateur astronomical observatory in Pakuranga, Auckland, New Zealand, where Jennie McCormick discovered the main-belt asteroid 386622 New Zealand in September 2009.
Arne Henden is a retired American observational astronomer, instrument and software specialist, and co-discoverer of a minor planet. He formerly served as director of the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO). The asteroid 33529 Henden is named after him.
Krisztián Sárneczky is a Hungarian teacher of geography and prolific discoverer of minor planets and supernovae, researching at Konkoly Observatory in Budapest, Hungary. He is a board member of the Hungarian Astronomical Association (HAA) and member of the American Association of Variable Star Observers, leader of the Comet Section of the HAA, and is a contributor in the editorial work of Hungarian Astronomical Almanach.
Poul B. Jensen is a Danish astronomer and a discoverer of 98 minor planets while working at Brorfelde Observatory. Between 1967 and 1969 he assisted in positional observations with the observatory's 7" transit circle. He is also a co-discoverer of the Comet Jensen-Shoemaker (1987g1). As of 2004, he was still publishing in the Minor Planet Circulars.
Martha Patricia Haynes is an American astronomer who specializes in radio astronomy and extragalactic astronomy. She is the distinguished professor of arts and sciences in astronomy at Cornell University. She has been on a number of high-level committees within the US and International Astronomical Community, including advisory committee for the Division of Engineering and Physical Sciences of the National Academies (2003–2008) and Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Review. She was a vice-president of the executive committee of the International Astronomical Union from 2006–2012, and was on the board of trustees of Associated Universities Inc from 1994 until 2016, serving two terms as board chair and one year as interim president.
Wendy Laurel Freedman is a Canadian-American astronomer, best known for her measurement of the Hubble constant, and as director of the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, California, and Las Campanas, Chile. She is now the John & Marion Sullivan University Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago. Her principal research interests are in observational cosmology, focusing on measuring both the current and past expansion rates of the universe, and on characterizing the nature of dark energy.
Megan E. Schwamb is an American astronomer and planetary scientist, and lecturer at Queen's University, Belfast. Schwamb has discovered and co-discovered several trans-Neptunian objects, and is involved with Citizen science projects such as Planet Four and Planet Hunters.
Nidia Irene Morrell is an Argentine astronomer who is a permanent staff member at the Las Campanas Observatory in La Serena, Chile. She was a member of the Massive Stars research group led by Virpi Niemelä and the Hubble Heritage Project. Professionally, she is known for her numerous contributions related to the astrophysics of massive stars. She participates in the systematic search for variations of brightness in stellar objects, including the observation of a candidate for the Thorne–Żytkow object. She was also a member of the team that discovered the supernova ASASSN-15lh.
