Philibert Jacques Melotte
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| 676 Melitta | 16 January 1909 | Template:MPC |
Philibert Jacques Melotte (29 January 1880 – 30 March 1961) was a British astronomer.
Early life
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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Obituary" />
Career
In 1908 he discovered a moon of Jupiter, today known as Pasiphaë. 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,<ref name="MPC-Discoverers" /> is named after the Attic form of the Greek Melissa, the bee, but its resemblance to the discoverer's name is not fortuitous.<ref name="springer" />
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,<ref name=melotte1915>Melotte, P. J. "A Catalogue of Star Clusters shown on Franklin-Adams Chart Plates", MmRAS, 1915</ref> 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.<ref>The Coma Berenices star cluster (Melotte 111)</ref>
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
- List of astronomical catalogues
- Collinder catalogue - a similar catalogue of open star clusters published by Per Collinder in 1931.