Named in honor of Charles A. Whitney, professor at Harvard University. Whitney has done seminal work on Cepheid modeling, and he is the editor of the JAAVSO. He has brought astronomy to art history, using computer sky simulations to recreate, and hence date, the sky scenes of van Gogh {see planet  (4457)}. Recently he has worked on physics and astronomy textbooks for high schools and has served as a science consultant to the Children’s Television Workshop. Whitney is also the author of several astronomy books for the public, including The Discovery of our Galaxy and Whitney’s Star Finder. (M 16046) _ _.