Wolf Bickel

Wolf Bickel (born 6 July 1942, Bensberg) is a German amateur astronomer and a prolific discoverer of asteroids, observing at his private Bergisch Gladbach Observatory, Germany.

He became enthusiastic about astronomy, when he received a celestial chart and Galilean binoculars as a gift from his grandmother at the age of 16.

In 1995, he built a 0.6-meter aperture telescope and discovered his first minor planet, the main-belt asteroid (14053) 1995 YS25 the same year.

[4] The 12-kilometer sized asteroid 4324 Bickel, discovered by American astronomer Laurence Taff in 1981, was named in his honor.

[2] The comparison was published by Erwin Schwab in the journal of the German astronomical society "Vereinigung der Sternfreunde" in 2013, and applies a different metric than used by the MPC.