Even a century later, only a few thousand asteroids were identified, numbered and named.
Najbolj znani astronomi, ki so v tej začetni dobi odkrivali asteroide so bili John Russel Hind, Annibale de Gasparis, Karl Theodor Robert Luther, Hermann Mayer Salomon Goldschmidt, Jean Chacornac, James Ferguson, Norman Robert Pogson, Ernst Wilhelm Leberecht Tempel, James Craig Watson, Christian Heinrich Friedrich Peters, Alphonse Louis Nicolas Borrelly, Johann Palisa, Paul in Prosper Henry ter Auguste Honoré Charlois.