Milorad B. Protić

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File:Milorad B. Protic.png
Milorad B. Protić
Minor planets discovered: 7<ref name="MPC-Discoverers" />
1517 Beograd 20 March 1938
1550 Tito 29 November 1937
1554 Yugoslavia 6 September 1940
1564 Srbija 15 October 1936
1675 Simonida 20 March 1938
2244 Tesla 22 October 1952
2348 Michkovitch 10 January 1939

Milorad B. Protić (Template:Lang-sr-cyr; 19 September 1911, Belgrade – 29 October 2001, Belgrade) was a Serbian astronomer, discoverer of comets and minor planets, and three times director of the Belgrade Observatory.<ref name="springer" />

Life and work

Protić finished a technical secondary school in 1921 and worked as a technical draftsman until 1931.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref> He joined the Belgrade Observatory in 1932,<ref name=":1" /> while in 1936 he started observations of minor planets, comets, and satellites, which have been continuously performed until the present-day.<ref name=":0" />

Protić is credited by the Minor Planet Center with the discovery of 7 numbered asteroids during 1936–1952,<ref name="MPC-Discoverers" /> including 1675 Simonida, named after queen Simonida, wife of medieval Serbian king Stefan Milutin, and 2348 Michkovitch, a rare Erigone asteroid named after Vojislav Mišković (1892–1976), who was a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts and head of the Belgrade Observatory.<ref name="MPC-Michkovitch" /> Protić also independently discovered comet C/1947 Y1.<ref name="springer" />

Protić died on 29 October 2001 in Belgrade. The main-belt asteroid 22278 Protitch, discovered by Henri Debehogne at ESO's Chilean La Silla site in 1983, was named in his memory.<ref name="springer" /> Naming citation was published on 30 December 2001 (Template:Small).<ref name="MPC-Circulars-Archive" />

Also, the outer main-belt asteroid 1724 Vladimir is named after Protić's grandson Vladimir Benišek, while 5397 Vojislava is named after Vojislava Protić-Benišek, his daughter, who has been a member of the observatory's staff since 1972, where she continues her father's work on celestial mechanics and minor planets, together with her son.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite web</ref>

See also

References

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