Vainu Bappu

On 2 July 1949, when Bappu was taking pictures of the night sky, he spotted a bright moving object which he had rightfully understood to be a comet.

When he turned to his professor, Bart Bok, and colleague Gordon Newkirk, they confirmed the discovery.

[1] He attended the Harvard Graduate School of Astronomy for his PhD after obtaining postgraduate degree from the Madras University.

[1] In a paper published in 1957, American astronomer Olin Chaddock Wilson and Bappu had described what would later be known as the Wilson–Bappu effect.

[4] On his return to India, Bappu was appointed to head a team of astronomers to build an observatory at Nainital.