Named in memory of Samuel Alfred Mitchell (1874–1960), a faculty member of Columbia University from 1899 to 1913 and then director of the Leander McCormick Observatory until 1945, known for his work on solar eclipses and stellar parallaxes. His measurements of the flash spectrum at the eclipses in 1900, 1901 and 1905 referred to nearly 3,000 lines. His book Eclipses of the Sun went through five editions. His photographic parallax work with the McCormick refractor resulted in the publication of 2,001 parallaxes by 1950. Subsequent work by van de Kamp {see planet  (1965)} and Vyssotsky {see planet  (1600)}, encouraged and supported by Mitchell, yielded absolute proper motions of 29,000 stars between magnitudes 8 and 12. (M 10844) _ _.