This paper describes the discovery of the dwarf planet Haumea in 2004 by a team of astronomers from the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands. The paper outlines the process of discovery, including the use of the Isaac Newton Telescope and the William Herschel Telescope, and the analysis of
Haumea (minor-planet number 136108) is a dwarf planet located beyond Neptune's orbit. It was discovered in 2004 by a team headed by Mike Brown of Caltech at the Palomar Observatory, and formally announced in 2005 by a team headed by José Luis Ortiz Moreno at the Sierra Nevada Observatory in Spain, who had discovered it that year in precovery images taken by the team in 2003. From that announcement, it received the provisional designation 2003 EL61.