Lipót Schulhof (12 March 1847 in Baja – October 1921 in Paris; ; ; ) was a Hungarian-Jewish astronomer, born in the Austrian Empire, who first worked at the Vienna Observatory and later spent most of his time at the Paris Observatory, observing comets and asteroids.

He provided a prediction for the 1893 return of comet 15P/Finlay, discovered the main-belt asteroid 147 Protogeneia in 1875, and was awarded the Lalande Prize of the French Academy of Sciences in 1893. Schulhof won the Lalande Prize again in 1920 for his calculation, assisted by Joseph Bossert, of the orbit of the periodic comet 12P/Pons–Brooks, discovered in 1812 by Pons.

Lipót Schulhof

Schulhof calculated the orbits of many asteroids and comets, taking perturbative interactions into account. With his exhaustive studies of objects such as comet 27P/Crommelin and others, he advanced the recovery of lost comets as well as those of lost minor planets.

Lipót Schulhof

The main-belt asteroid 2384 Schulhof, discovered by Marguerite Laugier in 1943, was named in his honor.

Lipót Schulhof

References

1847 births

1921 deaths

19th-century Austrian astronomers

20th-century French astronomers

Discoverers of asteroids

Hungarian Jews

19th-century Hungarian astronomers

Hungarian expatriates in Austria

Hungarian expatriates in France

People from Baja, Hungary

Recipients of the Lalande Prize