Asteroid (361193) Cheungtaklung = 2006 QW₁₈₄

Orbital Elements at Epoch 2458600.5 = 2019-Apr-27.0 TDB (JPL Solution 11)

This animation, made from four r'-band DECam images from 2013 April 17 by myself, shows the apparent motion of (361193) Cheungtaklung with respect to the background stars. North is up and east to the left. A scale bar is given. Also shown are the exposure start time stamps in UT.

On Jan 30th, 2019, I was saddened to know that my revered calligraphy teacher, Mr. Cheung, with whom I have been practising traditional Chinese calligraphy since I was four years old, passed away early that morning at age 73. He was far more than a teacher to me, but also like a great father and friend of mine. Under his great influence, my life attitudes and even temper carry plenty of resemblance to his. For example, I will never easily surrender to obstacles and difficulties.

After the farewell ceremony on Feb 1st evening, I contacted my long-term friend and collaborator Quan-Zhi Ye, asking for his help to propose naming of one of his discovered asteroids after Mr. Cheung, as I felt that this would be the greatest way to memorise him forever. Quan-Zhi happily accepted my plea, and offered me a list of unnamed yet numbered asteroids that were discovered during his collaboration with Lulin Observatory, Taiwan, more than a decade ago. I then decided to choose asteroid (361193) 2006 QW₁₈₄ as the one to be named after my teacher, for part of the whole string of numbers turns out to be his birthday.

On Aug 27th, 2019, the Minor Planet Center (MPC) released M.P.C. 115895, in which the naming request was officially accepted and announced:

Now, whenever I miss Mr. Cheung, I can always look up in the mighty starry nightsky, as between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, there is an asteroid that bears the name of my revered calligraphy teacher, Mr. Cheung Tak-Lung.

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