Hans-Emil Schuster (born September 19 1934 in Hamburg) is a German astronomer (retired since October 1991). Worked at Hamburg Observatory at Bergedorf and European Southern Observatory (ESO); former director of La Silla Observatory.

Discovered periodic comet 106P/Schuster . He also discovered the comet C/1976 D2 (in the contemporary nomenclature, it was known as Comet 1975 II or 1976c), which was notable for its large perihelion distance of 6.88 AU [1] [2], the largest yet observed at the time.

Discovered 24 asteroids, including notably the Apollo asteroid 2329 Orthos and the Amor asteroids 2608 Seneca , 3271 Ul , 3288 Seleucus , and 3908 Nyx. First observed the near-earth asteroid 1978 CA (lost and recovered in 2003).

Participated in the exploration, selection and testing of the sites of two ESO observatories: La Silla Observatory and Paranal Observatory (the latter is the VLT site).

Participated in two ESO Southern Sky Surveys: the ESO-B survey ("Quick-Blue Survey") completed in 1978 was the first deep optical survey of the southern sky; and the "Red Sky Survey". Photographic plates were taken with the ESO's 1-meter Schmidt Telescope at La Silla.

Co-discovered (with Richard M. West) the Phoenix Dwarf galaxy.

The asteroid 2018 Schuster was named in his honour.