Bengt Westerlund

Bengt Westerlund (January 17, 1921 - June 4, 2008) was a Swedish astronomer who specialised in observational astronomy.

He received his PhD from Uppsala University in 1954. In 1957 he was appointed astronomer at the Uppsala Southern Station at Mount Stromlo Observatory in Australia, where he made extensive studies of the southern Milky Way and the Magellanic Clouds. In 1967 he took a position as astronomer at Steward Observatory in Arizona and in 1969 was appointed Director of ESO in Chile, a position he held until 1975, when he returned to Sweden to become Professor of Astronomy at Uppsala Astronomical Observatory, retiring in 1987.