Named in honor of Horst W. Kaufmann (1929– ), well-known German astronomical optician. After spending several years of optical apprenticeship with famous firms such as Fecker and Zeiss {see planet  (851)}, Kaufmann founded his own company. He manufactured numerous telescope optics for observatories and institutes as well as for amateur astronomers. He produced several medium-sized systems for the Bonn and Heidelberg observatories and tackled very difficult light-weight infrared secondary mirrors for the 2.2-m telescope of the Max-Planck-Institut for Astronomy and for UKIRT. (M 27331) _ _.