Josep Comas Solà

Josep Comas i Solà (December 17 1868–December 2 1937) was a Spanish (Catalan) astronomer.

He observed planets including Mars and Saturn, measuring the period of rotation of the latter. He wrote some books popularizing astronomy, and was first president of the "Sociedad Astrónomica de España y América".

He discovered the periodic comet 32P/Comas Solá, and co-discovered the non-periodic C/1925 F1 (Shajn-Comas Solá); he also discovered some asteroids.

The asteroids 1102 Pepita (from his nickname Pepito) and 1655 Comas Solá are named after him.

In 1907 he claimed to observe limb darkening of Saturn's moon Titan, the first evidence that the body had an atmosphere.

He was the director of Fabra Observatory since it was stablished in 1904.

References

* [http://www.astrogea.org/ipa/galeria/comas-sola/index.html Josep Comas Solà at astrogea.org] ca