Carl Alvar Wirtanen (November 11, 1910 – March 7, 1990) was an American astronomer and discoverer of comets and minor planets who worked at Lick Observatory.
[4] After visiting the observatory in Kenosha with his violin teacher at age 12, he started grinding mirrors.
During the Second World War, he took a job as a physicist at the California Institute of Technology and worked on ballistics at the Naval Ordnance Test Station in the Mojave Desert.
Based on the Shane–Wirtanen survey, the Shane Wirtanen Catalogue, a count of galaxies, was his major work published in 1954.
[6] The asteroid 2044 Wirt, discovered by himself at Lick Observatory in 1950, was named in his honor in on 1 January 1981 (M.P.C.