The 1999 Gene Shoemaker NEO Grant Recipients

Gene Shoemaker NEO Grants, totaling $27,000 (US), were awarded to an international collection of researchers on 5 February 1999.

• Stefan Gajdos of the Slovak Republic
  
• Paulo Holvorcem of Brazil
  
• Frank Zoltowski of Australia.

Stefan Gajdos is a professional astronomer with the Institute of Astronomy in Bratislava in the Slovak Republic. His grant monies will be used to upgrade his program's equipment and software, to fund needed computer services, and to create a public outreach program.

Paulo Holvorcem, a teacher at the Universidade Estadual de Campinas in Brazil, will use his Gene Shoemaker NEO Grant to upgrade automation of equipment at his observatory, freeing a number of volunteer observers to spend more time conducting data analysis and taking more exposures during each observation session.

Frank Zoltowski is an amateur astronomer who conducts NEO searches in the small town of Woomera in the South Australian outback. Grant money will enable Zoltowski to upgrade his charge-coupled device (CCD) camera, improving his ability to detect NEOs in sky images and confirm their orbits in a series of exposures.

The Planetary Society would like to thank the other Shoemaker NEO Grant applicants.

An international advisory group recommended candidates to receive the grant awards. The advisory group included grant coordinator Daniel D. Durda and near-Earth object scientists Dr. Richard Binzel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dr. Clark Chapman, also of the Southwest Research Institute, Dr. Andrea Carusi of the Spaceguard Foundation, and Dr. Brian Marsden of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.