[meteorite-list] Winners of the 2002 Shoemaker NEO Grants Announced

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:00:12 2004
Message-ID: <200207311654.JAA03419_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.planetary.org/html/news/articlearchive/headlines/2002/2002grantwinners.html

Announcing the Winners of the 2002 Shoemaker NEO Grants
by Dr. Dan Durda & Melanie Melton
The Planetary Society
July 30, 2002

The results are in!

Without further delay, the winners of The Planetary Society's 2002 Shoemaker
Near Earth Object Grants are as follows:

James McGaha from Tucson, Arizona.
John Broughton from Reedy Creek in Queensland, Australia.
Matt Dawson from the Roeser Observatory in Luxembourg.
Roy Tucker from Tucson, Arizona.
Richard Kowalski from Zephyrhills, Florida.

These dedicated observers and their projects were selected from a group of 37
proposals that The Planetary Society received from 13 different countries. Each
Shoemaker Grant proposal offered ways to better our understanding of Near Earth
Objects, which couldn't have be more appropriate, with the recent discovery of
Asteroid 2002 NT7 and all of the media attention it has received. With so many
highly qualified proposals, the selection committee's choice was a difficult
one.

Read more about each of the winners below:

James McGaha, an amateur astronomer from Tucson, AZ, was awarded $10,000 to
automate the operations of his 0.62-m telescope. His Grasslands Observatory is
located at a superb dark site at an altitude of 5,000 feet, but its remote
location 55 miles from Tucson does not allow for maximum fulfillment of its
potential. The Shoemaker NEO grant awarded to McGaha will be used to install a
computerized control system to allow automated operations at Grasslands
Observatory and considerably improve the efficiency of the NEO observations he
will make.

John Broughton, an extremely active observer from Reedy Creek in Queensland,
Australia, has been awarded $8,140 for the purchase of an Apogee AP6Ep CCD
camera to be used on a new computer-controlled 0.46-m telescope. The new CCD
camera purchased with Shoemaker NEO grant funding will immediately be put to
work making follow-up position reports on fast moving NEOs and NEOs that cannot
be seen by northern hemisphere observers.

Matt Dawson, a dedicated amateur NEO observer representing the Roeser
Observatory in Luxembourg and the Cote de Meuse Observatory in France, has been
awarded $6,300 to purchase an Apogee AP47 CCD camera that will be used to
follow-up faint NEO discoveries. Dawson will use the new CCD camera at both
observatories, where he will be able to reach magnitudes as faint as V=21.

Roy Tucker of Tucson, AZ has been awarded $2,950 to purchase software and
computer equipment. Tucker's three telescope/camera systems produce more data
that any one person can fully examine and measure, so with the help of the
grant, he can now distribute the data among fellow local amateur observers to
help him in the reduction and analysis of data.

Richard Kowalski of Zephyrhills, FL is the owner, founder, and maintainer of the
Minor Planet Mailing List (MPML) (http://www.bitnik.com/mp), which over the last
four years has become a vital link between observers and other researchers
worldwide involved in NEOs and other minor planets. It costs Kowalski
approximately $300 per year to run and maintain the MPML and its associated web
pages. The Planetary Society will award Kowalski $300 per year for the next 3
years to fund MPML operations, a bargain considering its value to the NEO
community.
Received on Wed 31 Jul 2002 12:54:09 PM PDT