Freimut Börngen

Freimut Börngen (born October 17, 1930) is a German astronomer. A few sources give his first name wrongly as Freimuth.

He has studied galaxies with the Schmidt telescope at the Karl Schwarzschild Observatory in Tautenburg, Germany. In 1995 he retired, but continues to work as a freelancer for the observatory. As a by-product of his work, he has discovered numerous asteroids (519, as of July 2006). The research on asteroids had to be done in his spare time, as the search for small objects was not considered prestigious enough by the GDR research managers. During the GDR regime, Börngen restricted himself to politically neutral names for his asteroids, such as topics related to Thuringia or famous scientists and composers. Examples include 2424 Tautenburg, 3181 Ahnert, 3245 Jensch, or 3941 Haydn. After the German reunification, he chose systematically historical, cultural, scientific and geographical namings, and at times honoured amateur astronomers. Other names include references to resistance fighters against the Nazi suppression, or document a religious interest. [As, "e.g.", in naming Asteroid 12694 Schleiermacher after German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher.]

Freimut Börngen has achieved great reputation in the international scientific community for his human qualities and the well-substantiated choice of names. The IAU honoured him with asteroid 3859 Börngen, which was discovered by E. Bowell at the Anderson Mesa Station of the Lowell Observatory, Arizona.

In the year 2006, he was also awarded the "Bundesverdienstkreuz am Bande" (Cross of Merit on ribbon) by German Federal President Horst Köhler.

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