recognition

GRB030725: An Amateur Discovery in a Professional Field

Berto Monard, an AAVSO member and observer, is the first amateur to discover the afterglow to a GRB before the professional community. While many afterglows have been imaged by amateurs, including the famous GRB030329, this is the first time an afterglow was discovered and published by an amateur.

AAVSO 98th Spring Meeting, Northwoods Resort, Big Bear Lake, California, May 19 - 21, 2009

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.

The American Astronomical Society's Chambliss Amateur Achievement Award for exemplary research by an amateur astronomer (2015)

Mike Simonsen

This award is given to an amateur astronomer for the discovery of a gamma-ray burst optical afterglow.

Announced at the 103rd Spring Meeting of the AAVSO Ontario, California, June 2014

Arto Oksanen

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.