Discovered 1980 March 16 by C.-I. Lagerkvist at La Silla.
Named in memory of the Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius (1701-1744), renowned for devising the thermometric scale. A participant in the French expedition to Lapland to measure the curvature of the Earth, he was also the first astronomer to try to determine stellar magnitudes by photometric methods. The year 1990 marks the 250th anniversary of his establishment of the Uppsala Observatory, the original building of which is still preserved in the center of Uppsala. The event has been celebrated at the Nordic-Baltic Astronomy Meeting held in Uppsala during 1990 June 17-21.
Celsius is also honored by a lunar crater.
Asteroids discovered by Uppsala astronomers
Johan Lagerros