Paul G. Comba (1926 – April 5, 2017) was an

Italian-American Italian Americans () are Americans who have full or partial Italians, Italian ancestry. The largest concentrations of Italian Americans are in the urban Northeastern United States, Northeast and industrial Midwestern United States, Midwestern ...

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

, an

amateur astronomer Amateur astronomy is a hobby where participants enjoy observing or imaging celestial objects in the sky using the unaided eye, binoculars, or telescopes. Even though scientific research may not be their primary goal, some amateur astronomers m ...

and a prolific

discoverer of minor planets This is a list of minor-planet discoverers credited by the Minor Planet Center with the discovery of one or several minor planets (such as near-Earth and main-belt asteroids, Jupiter trojans and distant objects). , the discovery of 612,011 num ...

. He was born in

Tunisia Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

parents in 1926, and moved to

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

at a young age. Admitted to university studies at the age of 17, He attended the

University of Turin The University of Turin (Italian language, Italian: ''Università degli Studi di Torino'', UNITO) is a public university, public research university in the city of Turin, in the Piedmont (Italy), Piedmont region of Italy. It is one of the List ...

(1943–46). In 1946 he moved to the United States to attend

Bluffton College Bluffton University is a private Mennonite university in Bluffton, Ohio. It is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission, with three programs that have earned programmatic accreditation: education, nursing and social work. The university has ...

, from which he graduated in 1947. He then attended

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private university, private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small g ...

, and completed his Ph.D. work in mathematics in 1951 (the degree was conferred at commencement in 1952). In 1951 he moved to

Honolulu Honolulu ( ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, located in the Pacific Ocean. It is the county seat of the Consolidated city-county, consolidated City and County of Honol ...

where he taught at the

University of Hawaii A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

until 1960. He then joined

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

as a software developer, and later as a member of the IBM Cambridge Scientific Center. There he worked in

Cryptography Cryptography, or cryptology (from "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logy, -logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of Adversary (cryptography), ...

, and also developed a multiplication algorithm for large numbers, which reduces the multiplication time to as little as 3% of the conventional algorithm. In 2003 he won the Leslie C. Peltier Award for his contribution to

astronomy Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest includ ...

. He is the author of the Astronomical League's Asteroid Club Observing Guide, and was an active member of the Prescott Astronomy Club.

Prescott Observatory

After retirement in 1991, Comba moved to

Prescott, Arizona Prescott ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Yavapai County, Arizona, United States. As of 2020 United States census, 2020 Census, the city's population was 45,827. In 1864, Prescott was designated as the capital of the Arizona Territory, r ...

, where he built the Prescott Observatory ( obs. code:

684 Year 684 ( DCLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 684 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming ...

) There he specialized in discovering

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

s and has been recognized for the discovery of 644 numbered objects as of September 2013. Refurbished in 2011, the observatory houses a PlaneWave CDK 24 inch telescope with two Takahashi wide field refractors in the dome. There is a dedicated

solar observatory A solar telescope or a solar observatory is a special-purpose telescope used to observe the Sun. Solar telescopes usually detect light with wavelengths in, or not far outside, the visible spectrum. Obsolete names for Sun telescopes include helio ...

that is equipped with a Lunt 152

solar telescope A solar telescope or a solar observatory is a special-purpose telescope used to observe the Sun. Solar telescopes usually detect light with wavelengths in, or not far outside, the visible spectrum. Obsolete names for Sun telescopes include helio ...

. The observatory also has a nano lab for cosmology research that is currently equipped with a JEOL 5800LV SEM (

scanning electron microscope A scanning electron microscope (SEM) is a type of electron microscope that produces images of a sample by scanning the surface with a focused beam of electrons. The electrons interact with atoms in the sample, producing various signals that ...

). Prescott Observatory is an active contributor for the webcast organization SLOOH which is the premiere webcast organization for live celestial events. The observatory is now owned and operated by Matt Francis.

List of discovered minor planets

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Comba, Paul 1926 births 2017 deaths 20th-century American astronomers 21st-century American astronomers Discoverers of asteroids * Italian emigrants to the United States