Joseph Jean Pierre Laurent

[10] Laurent was awarded the Lalande Prize of the French Academy of Sciences in 1858 for his discovery, jointly with five other asteroid and comet discoverers.

At one time the Minor Planet Center, which lists asteroid discoverers using their initials and surname, gave his name as "A. Laurent", with the "A."

[15][16][17] A notation (see image) at the top of a hand-drawn star chart in the Observatoire de Marseille – Patrimoines archives notes the discovery of the asteroid as follows: Némausa (51) dec. [ = découverte ] à Nîmes par J. Laurent (22 janvier 1858), which means "51 Nemausa disc.

According to his biographer Elizabeth Anne McCauley,[19] Disdéri developed this process during his stay in Nîmes in 1853, and then moved back to Paris to make his fortune.

She cites Disdéri's own book[20] which thanks a chemist and assay office inspector in Nîmes named Monsieur Laurent for his assistance with the chemistry.

The coincidence of name, profession, city and time period is suggestive, however a definitive link to the discoverer of the asteroid has not been established.

Hand-drawn star chart noting the discovery of 51 Nemausa , whose track of motion is depicted ( [3] )
Hand-drawn star chart (detail) noting the discovery of 51 Nemausa , zoomed to show handwritten legend at top, which credits J. Laurent ( [4] )
Equinoxial charts drawn up by Laurent ( [5] )
Extract of letter dated 5 September 1858 which gives his first name as Joseph-Jean-Pierre ( [6] ) Archived 12 March 2017 at the Wayback Machine