Knöfel is asteroid #16438 and also known as 1989 AU6. Knöfel was discovered by Freimut Börngen at the Tautenburg Observatorium in the German Democratic Republic. Knöfel belongs to the asteroid-family Lydia/ Padua.

The asteroid #16438 is named after the German meteorologist André Knöfel, who was born in 1963 and is the head of the Fireball Data Center of the International Meteor Organization and an observer of minor planets. He has located precovery observations of many objects in the Digital Sky Survey, among them this minor planet and the transneptunian object (20000) 2000 WR ₁₀₆ , also known as Varuna.

Because the asteroid #16438 is named after a German, so it is really important that the name isn’t Knofel as sometimes given incorrectly, but Knöfel. While Knofel would be a very widely understood dialect word for garlic, the case is more difficult with Knöfel. This seems to be a southern German derivation from northern German Knop, which would translate as knob into English. Knop as a name could be:

1. the profession of somebody, who makes knobs;
2. a description of somebody, who is of a small and round shape;
3. derived from a place name, which could be Knoop or Knopp, which both exist in Germany.

The third option isn’t likely because southern Germans would rather have made their own derivation from a place name instead of adopting and then changing a northern German nickname. So a person’s shape or a person’s profession remain as the possible origin of the name Knöfel.

Most asteroid “researchers” would at this point say that Knöfel represents short, obese people as well as knobs. But I can’t agree with this. Of course Knöfel can represent knobs, but Knöfel caught my attention because my natal Knöfel is conjunct my natal midheaven. So should I make knobs? I don’t think so! André Knöfel is the head of the Fireball Data Center of the International Meteor Organization. So he is watching meteors/ shooting stars and he is also the head of a science organization. These features justify much more my natal Knöfel conjunct my natal midheaven.