Named in honor of the German astronomer and mathematician Johann Elert Bode (1747–1826). He was the founder of the Berliner Astronomisches Jahrbuch (1774) and director of the Berlin Observatory in 1780. He is also known for the empiric law of planetary distances  (1766) which was originally found by J. D. Titius {see planet  (1998)}. (H 95) _ _.