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  • 21 Aug, 2019

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Gordon Myers Amateur Achievement Award

The Gordon Myers Amateur Achievement Award, known until 2018 as the Amateur Achievement Award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, is one of nine annual astronomical awards managed by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. It recognizes "significant contributions to astronomy or amateur astronomy by those not employed in the field of astronomy in a professional capacity." The contributions can be done in the fields of both observational astronomy or astronomical technologies. The award has been given to amateur astronomers from various countries since 1979 and has become one of the most geographically diverse astronomical awards.

Award winners receive a commemorative plaque, which is presented at the Annual Meeting Awards Banquet. The monetary value of the award is US$500. Candidates can be nominated by any member of the astronomical community (with the exception of the nominees themselves and their families) and the nominations should be accompanied by other letters of support. All the nominations have to be delivered to the Astronomical Society of the Pacific by December 15 of the nominating year and remain valid for three years. The winners are selected by the Awards Committee appointed by the Board of Directors. The committee have the right not to award any of the nominees if they do not consider their achievements exceptional enough, which has already happened several times.

Winners

Recipients of the award have been:

Year Name Nationality Field Notes
1979 James McMahon United States Occultations
1980 Frank Bateson New Zealand Variable stars
1981 George Alcock United Kingdom Novae/Comets
1982 Ben Mayer United States Problicom
1983 J. U. Gunter United States Asteroids
1984 Russell Genet United States Photoelectric photometry
1985 Gregg Thompson & Robert Evans Australia Supernovae
1986 Jean Meeus Belgium Computational astronomy
1987 Clinton B. Ford United States Variable stars
1988 Jack B. Newton Canada Astrophotography
1989 Paul Baize France Double stars
1990 Oscar Monnig United States Meteorites
1991 Otto Kippes Germany Asteroid orbits
1992 Richard Lines &
Helen Lines
United States Photoelectric photometry of variable stars
1993 David H. Levy Canada/United States Comets
1994 Walter H. Haas United States ALPO founder
1995 Donald Parker United States Planetary imaging
1996 M. Daniel Overbeek South Africa Variable stars
1997 Edward A. Halbach United States Variable stars/occultations
1998 Albert F. A. L. Jones New Zealand Variable stars/comets
1999 Warren Offutt United States Trans-Neptunian objects
2000 Paul Boltwood Canada Deep-sky imaging/Comet Hyakutake
2001 Syuichi Nakano Japan Computing comet orbits
2002 No award
2003 Kyle E. Smalley United States Near-Earth asteroids
2004 Nik Szymanek United Kingdom Imaging and image processing
2005 Tim Hunter United States Light pollution
2006 Kamil Hornoch Czech Republic Visual and CCD observations of variable stars/comets
2007 Peter Francis Williams Australia R Coronae Borealis stars/variable star monitoring
2008 Steve Mandel United States CCD imaging
2009 Thomas Droege United States Developing CCD instrumentation and a worldwide sky survey program
2010 Allan Rahill Canada Adapted Canadian Meteorological Centre forecast products for the purpose of planning observing sessions with highly accurate high resolution point forecasts of cloud cover, transparency, seeing, darkness, wind, temperature and humidity over North and Central America
2011 Kevin Apps United Kingdom Advancing the fields of extra-solar planet research and stellar astrophysics
2012 Jeffrey L. Hopkins United States Photoelectric photometry and high-resolution spectroscopy
2013 No award
2014 Rod Stubbings Australia Instrumental in helping redefine the Z Cam sub-type of dwarf novae, and discovered the recurrent nova V745 Sco in outburst in the morning sky, triggering an AAVSO Alert Notice and significant attention from the astronomical community
2015 No award
2016 No award
2017 Gao Xing China Supernovae/Comets
2018 Thiam-Guan Tan Australia Exoplanets

See also

Other Astronomical Society of the Pacific awards:

Other amateur astronomy awards: