is a Japanese

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 ...

who has discovered hundreds of asteroids, most of them in collaboration with

Kazuro Watanabe is a Japanese amateur astronomer and prolific discoverer of minor planets. He was born in Hokkaidō, Japan and is a member of the ''Astronomical Society of Japan'' as well as of the ''Oriental Astronomical Association''. Through publications ...

, placing him among the most prolific

discoverers 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 numb ...

Career in astronomy

Kin Endate was born in Iwaizumi in

Iwate Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. It is the second-largest Japanese prefecture at , with a population of 1,210,534 (as of October 1, 2020). Iwate Prefecture borders Aomori Prefecture to the north, Akita Prefectur ...

and went to Hokkaido Designers School to study photography. He began taking astrophotos in high school, but did not begin serious asteroid observations until 1986. His notable discoveries include the minor planets (5648) 1990 VU1 and

6500 Kodaira 6500 Kodaira, provisional designation , is a highly eccentric, rare-type asteroid and sizable Mars-crosser from the central regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 10 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 15 March 1993, by Japanese amat ...

, a

Jupiter trojan The Jupiter trojans, commonly called trojan asteroids or simply trojans, are a large group of asteroids that share the planet Jupiter's orbit around the Sun. Relative to Jupiter, each trojan librates around one of Jupiter's stable Lagrange poin ...

and the

Mars-crosser A Mars-crossing asteroid (MCA, also Mars-crosser, MC) is an asteroid whose orbit crosses that of Mars. Some Mars-crossers numbered below 100000 are listed here. They include the two numbered Mars trojans 5261 Eureka and . Many databases, for i ...

, respectively. He also recorded the first known

precovery In astronomy, precovery (short for pre-discovery recovery) is the process of finding the image of an object in images or photographic plates predating its discovery, typically for the purpose of calculating a more accurate orbit. This happens mos ...

images of

Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena ar ...

with his private diameter telescope on March 15, 1993, ten days before the official discovery of the comet. Kin, who was looking specifically for asteroids, did not know of the comet in his images until after the official discovery. D/1993 F2 Shoemaker-Levy 9
Cometography. Retrieved 16 Jan 2010.

Awards and honors

The main-belt asteroid 4282 Endate, discovered by his colleges

Seiji Ueda is a Japanese astronomer. He is a prolific discoverer of minor planets. Between 1987 and 2000, Ueda (in collaboration with Hiroshi Kaneda) discovered 705 asteroids. He holds an MD and Ph.D. from Stanford University and is on the staff at the Gr ...

and

Hiroshi Kaneda is a Japanese astronomer and discoverer of minor planets from Sapporo, in the northernmost prefecture of Japan. Kaneda ranks among the world's most prolific individual discoverers of minor planets. He is credited by the Minor Planet Center with ...

at Kushiro in 1987, was named in his honor. The official naming citation was published by the

Minor Planet Center The Minor Planet Center (MPC) is the official body for observing and reporting on minor planets under the auspices of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Founded in 1947, it operates at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Function ...

on 8 July 1990 ().

List of discovered minor planets

Most asteroids were discovered by Kin Endate in collaboration with

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Endate, Kin 1960 births Discoverers of asteroids * 20th-century Japanese astronomers Living people 21st-century Japanese astronomers

Career in astronomy

Awards and honors

List of discovered minor planets

See also

References