[3] From around 1961, he spent 11 years as Head of the Design Department for telescopes at Carl Zeiss AG in Oberkochen, Germany.
[4] In 1972 he became Head of the Optics and Telescopes Group [4] at the European Southern Observatory (ESO), where he worked for the next 21 years, first in Geneva and then in Garching, Germany.
In particular, he developed the concept of active optics, which is now the basic principle on which modern large telescopes are constructed.
Wilson retired in 1993, writing a two-volume monograph Reflecting Telescope Optics, a leading work in the field.
The name was proposed by Lutz Schmadel and endorsed by the Heidelberg Observatory, where the asteroid had been discovered by Karl Reinmuth 56 years earlier.