Giuseppe Donatiello

Giuseppe Donatiello is an Italian amateur astronomer. He is primarily known as the discoverer of eleven nearby dwarf galaxies in the Local Volume.

Contributions

He discovered in 2016 a dwarf galaxy about 10 million light years away in the constellation of Andromeda called Donatiello I. This is the first galaxy to be named after its non-professional discoverer.
In 2020, he discovered the ultrafaint dwarf galaxy named Pisces VII/Triangulum III which turned out to be a strong satellite candidate of the dwarf spiral galaxy Messier 33. Pisces VII is the first Local Group galaxy to be discovered by a non-professional astronomer.
Also in 2021, the discovery of three new satellites of the spiral galaxy NGC 253 was announced. These three new dwarf galaxies were named Donatiello II, III and IV. All were later observed and confirmed as satellites of NGC 253 by the Hubble Space Telescope.
In 2022, he discovered a very faint dwarf satellite galaxy of M31 which was named Pegasus V/Andromeda XXXIV. This object turned out to be particularly ancient and could be a fossil of the first star formation.
In 2024, the discovery of five more satellite galaxies of the NGC 253 galaxy was announced. The new objects were named Donatiello V, VI, VII, VIII and IX

To these discoveries must be added some candidate planetary nebulae and the participation in the discovery and analysis of several dozen stellar streams
He is the principal investigator and coordinator of the National Deep Sky Research Section of the Italian Amateur Astronomers Union