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Old 19-09-2005, 05:17 PM
Greg Bryant
AS&T Editor

Greg Bryant is offline
 
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Sydney
Posts: 352
Robby,

With the giant asteroid/comet surveys, naming rights are an issue. All of the comets discovered during the course of the LINEAR survey are named "LINEAR". With other surveys, sometimes they are named for the "survey", and sometimes for the astronomer who actually noticed the "new object".

There have been some cases in recent years where comets have been named, by the IAU-appointed committee, for the survey even though the astronomer claimed he had the "right" to have the comet named after them - on the basis that the discovery circumstances of that particular comet were different to the other comets that have been detected by the survey.

Sometimes the naming committee agrees with the astronomer when the discovery is reported, other times...no.
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