Name Andrea Boattini | Role Astronomer | |
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Education University of Bologna (1996) Similar People Andrea Di Paola, Robert H McNaught, Marco Cavagna | ||
Andrea Boattini (born 16 September 1969) is an Italian astronomer and a prolific discoverer of minor planets and comets.
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After developing a growing interest in minor planets, he graduated in 1996 from the University of Bologna with a thesis on near-Earth objects (NEOs). He is involved in various projects related to NEO follow-up and search programs, with special interest in the NEO class known as Atens.
He currently works at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona after many years spent at the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR, National Research Council) and the Astronomical Observatory in Rome. He worked for the Catalina Sky Survey project from 2007–14, in Tucson, Arizona (USA). Meanwhile, he also discovered the comets C/2007 W1 (Boattini), C/2008 J1 (Boattini), P/2008 O3 (Boattini), C/2008 S3 (Boattini), P/2008 T1 (Boattini), P/2008 Y1 (Boattini), P/2009 B1 (Boattini), C/2009 P2 (Boattini), P/2009 Q4 (Boattini), C/2009 W2 (Boattini), C/2010 F1 (Boattini), C/2010 G1 (Boattini) and accidentally recovered 206P/Barnard-Boattini during his work from Mount Lemmon Survey (also see lost comet).
Asteroid 8925 Boattini is named in his honour. Naming citation was published on 2 February 1999 (M.P.C. 33793).
List of discovered minor planets
Andrea Boattini is credited by the Minor Planet Center (MPC) with the discovery of hundreds of minor planets made between 1977 (see following comment) and 2006.
He named the asteroids 12848 Agostino and 14973 Rossirosina, in honor of his father Agostino (b. 1932) and his mother, Rosina Rossi Boattini (b. 1934).
The minor planet (48381) 1977 SU3, discovered at the Siding Spring Observatory on 17 September 1977, is credited by the MPC to Andrea Boattini and his older co-discoverer Giuseppe Forti (b. 1939). However Boattini did not co-discover this asteroid on the day after his 8th birthday in 1977, but rather recovered the body from the original observations, referenced as MPS 18832, which were published by the MPC on 13 October 2000.
As this list contains numbered minor planets only, the unnumbered near-Earth asteroids 2007 WD5 and 2012 FC71, first observed by Boattini in 2007 and 2012, respectively, are not included.
List of discovered comets
Andrea Boattini has also discovered or re-discovered 25 comets (see table).