Named in honor of husband-and-wife staff members at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory for more than 30 years. Natalia Nikolaevna Stepanian, prominent astrophysicist, is head of the observatory’s solar physics department. Arnol’d Artashesovich Stepanian, head of the gamma-ray laboratory, initiated the construction of the unique 48-element telescope for the observatory’s research on gamma-ray sources. (M 18137) _ _.
Discovered on 7-9-1980 in Nauchnyj by Chernykh, N. S.