Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Halle (Saale), Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
About Freimut Börngen
- Freimut Börngen (born 17 October 1930) is a German astronomer and a prolific discoverer of minor planets.
- A few sources give his first name wrongly as "Freimuth".
- The Minor Planet Center credits him as F.
- Borngen. 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 honored amateur astronomers.
- Other names include references to resistance fighters against the Nazi suppression, or document a religious interest.Freimut Börngen has achieved great reputation in the international scientific community for his human qualities and the well-substantiated choice of names.
- In 2006, he was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz am Bande (Cross of Merit on ribbon) by German Federal President Horst Köhler. The main-belt asteroid 3859 Börngen, discovered by astronomer Edward Bowell at the U.S.
- Anderson Mesa Station in 1987, was named in his honor.
- The naming and its citation was proposed and written by his college Lutz Schmadel, and published on 20 February 1989 (M.P.C.
- 14207).
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