Philibert Jacques Melotte

Melotte was born in Camden Town, North London to Belgian parents who emigrated from Namur. His father was a lecturer. Melotte attended the Roan School in Greenwich. He entered the Royal Observatory in 1895 and passed his examination in 1902.^[2][3]

In 1908 he discovered a moon of Jupiter, today known as Pasiphae. It was simply designated "Jupiter VIII" and was not given its present name until 1975. The outer main-belt asteroid 676 Melitta, the only asteroid he discovered,^[1] is named after the Attic form of the Greek Melissa, the bee, but its resemblance to the discoverer's name is not fortuitous.^[4]

The conspicuous star cluster in the Coma Berenices constellation is commonly designated Mel 111 since it appeared in Melotte's 1915 catalogue of star clusters,^[5] but not in Charles Messier's famous catalogue of deep sky objects or in the New General Catalogue since it was not proved to be a true cluster until 1938 by the astronomer R J Trumpler.^[6]

Melotte was awarded the Jackson-Gwilt Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1909. A collection of his papers is held at Cambridge University Library.

• List of astronomical catalogues
• Collinder catalogue - a similar catalogue of open star clusters published by Per Collinder in 1931.