Harlow Shapley once referred to Leslie C. Peltier as "the world's greatest living amateur astronomer." This was a view shared by all who knew him, or knew of him. During his active observing life, which spanned all, or parts of eight decades, he made over 132,000 observations of variable stars, discovered twelve comets and six novae.
In order to recognize the contributions of AAVSO Solar Section contributors, the AAVSO Solar Observer Awards (sunspots only) were initiated at the 1999 Annual Meeting. Sunspot awards are presented to solar observers who have reached milestones of 1000, 1500, 2000, or subsequent increments of 500 sunspot observations by September of a given year. In 2004 a SID awards program was implemented to give equal recognition to SID observers.
Without the nightly observations of amateur astronomers, the professional astronomer would find it difficult, if not impossible, to collect the quantity of data that is needed to further the study of stars, the Sun, novae and supernovae, comets, and meteors.
