Luboš Kohoutek

Luboš Kohoutek (born January 29, 1935) is a Czech astronomer and a discoverer of minor planets and comets, including Comet Kohoutek which was visible to the naked eye in 1973.

Kohoutek has been interested in astronomy since high school. He studied physics and astronomy at universities in Brno and Prague (finished 1958). Then he started to work in Astronomical Institute of Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, where he published a well cited catalog (Catalogue of Galactic Planetary Nebulae, 1967). Kohoutek obtained long term position at the Bergedorf Observatory in Hamburg. After Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia (1968) he decided to stay in Germany (1970). His discoveries in the 1970s made him well known in media. In later years Kohoutek worked in observatories in Spain and Chile, working with planetary nebulae. He officially retired in 2001, yet he is still researching at the Hamburg-Bergedorf Observatory. Kohoutek has published 162 scientific works.

Kohoutek is most famous for discoveries of numerous comets, including periodic comets 75D/Kohoutek and 76P/West–Kohoutek–Ikemura, as well as the famously disappointing "Comet Kohoutek" (C/1973 E1).

He also discovered numerous asteroids, including the Apollo asteroid 1865 Cerberus. The main-belt asteroid 1850 Kohoutek was named after him.

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