Richard Martin West


Richard Martin West is a Danish astronomer and discoverer of astronomical objects with a long career at the European Southern Observatory and at the International Astronomical Union.
He discovered numerous comets, including Comet West, which was one of the brightest comets of the 1970s, and the periodic comets 76P/West–Kohoutek–Ikemura and 123P/West–Hartley.
He is also credited by the Minor Planet Center with the discovery of 40 minor planets between 1976 and 1986, including 2146 Stentor and 2148 Epeios, two Trojan asteroids. Together with Hans-Emil Schuster, he co-discovered the Phoenix Dwarf galaxy.

Early life and education

West was born in Copenhagen in 1941. He completed high school in 1959 and then achieved a degree in astronomy and astrophysics from University of Copenhagen in 1964.

Career at ESO

Richard West began working at ESO in 1970, when he joined as Assistant Astronomer to the ESO Director General, Adriaan Blaauw. His career took a leap in 1972, when he charged one of the first and largest scientific programmes of ESO: the Sky Atlas Laboratory project to systematically map the southern hemisphere.
West was a leading figure in helping out and establishing serious collaborations with the scientific communities of the Central and Eastern European countries in the wake of the political, social and economical turmoil following the collapse and dismantling of the Soviet block in the early 1990s.
West retired in 2005, after a continuous employment at ESO.

Positions

Richard West focussed a lot of his worklife on the organizational matters of the international scientific community in addition to science communications in general. He held a number of influential positions:
2052 Tamriko24 October 1976
2053 Nuki24 October 1976
2115 Irakli24 October 1976
2116 Mtskheta24 October 1976
2117 Danmark9 January 1978
2145 Blaauw24 October 1976
2146 Stentor24 October 1976
2147 Kharadze25 October 1976
2148 Epeios24 October 1976
2187 La Silla24 October 1976

6362 Tunis19 May 1979
8066 Poldimeri6 August 1980
8993 Ingstad30 October 1980
9272 Liseleje19 May 1979
10462 Saxogrammaticus19 May 1979
10668 Plansos24 October 1976
11005 Waldtrudering6 August 1980
12188 Kalaallitnunaat9 August 1978
6 August 1980
1 November 1985