Career
The Minor Planet Center ranks him 8th for a total of more than 3,700 minor planets discovered at ESO"s Louisiana Silla Observatory in northern Chile and at the Rozhen Observatory in Bulgaria during 1986–2002. Notable discoveries include 4486 Mithra, a near-Earth and Apollo asteroid, 7968 Elst-Pizarro, which is classified as both, asteroid and comet, and more than 25 Jupiter trojans. The minor planet 3936 Elst, a stony Vestian asteroid from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, roughly 6 kilometers in diameter, was named in his honour.