John Talbot	Steve Kerr	Eric Frappa

Tsutomu Hayamizu	Brad Timerson

 

Statement from John Talbot:  "I am member and past Chairman of Wellington Astronomical Society (WAS) and a member of the Royal Astronomical Society of NEW Zealand (RASNZ).  I was the webmaster for a while.  I have been an observer of Occultations for about 8 years and for a while I was the RASNZ coordinator and collected reports and did some analysis before forwarding to IOTA.  That job got passed to Steve Kerr when I retired.  I also wrote a few Excel macros that make the loading of reports quicker.  I suspect this was a primary reason for the award.  Since my stroke in 2014, I have not managed to get my 12-inch rig working again. I hope to get my 4.5 Meade to working near future but that will restrict me to mag 4 and brighter events.  :-(

 

 

Statement from Steve Kerr: 

 

 

 

About Eric Frappa:  "Eric Frappa is a French amateur astronomer and, since 2003 through his website Euraster, the regional coordinator of IOTA asteroidal observations for Europe. As an active observer himself, he has been involved to date in more than 140 positive reports using his own mobile equipment on the field and two robotic telescopes (TAROT) in France and Chile provided by A. Klotz (CNRS-IRAP). He also participated in several international campaigns for TNO and large satellite occultations with the Paris Observatory team, including a pre-New Horizons accurate measurement of Charon's radius. He was honored in 2005 by having an asteroid, 20246 Frappa, named after him.

 

 

Statement from Tsutomu Hayamizu:  I've never imagined that the big award would be given to me. Perhaps this will be the heaviest honour for my life.  The reason of this prize is Leadership in Regional Coordination of IOTA  Asteroidal Observations and Continuing Contributions of  Occultation Measurements. Then I would like to thank Japanese occultation observers for this award. And, I say congratulations to Brad, Eric, John and Steve, who win the prize together.  The observation of occultations stands out as a field where amateurs contribute to astronomy. Especially Japan is a small country, but it is a good region for the observation of occultations, because, Japan has long area from north to south and have many excellent observers.  Japan is also located at an important position because the USA, Europe and Japan can cooperate with each other to cover the whole sky of the northern hemisphere. Also in the future, Japan should continue to play an important part. I would like to make an effort to play that part, too.  I wish I could receive this award with Takashi Setoguchi, who died young two years ago, because he provided predictions of many important occultation events for us and he taught me how to analyze occultation observations. I would like to respect him for his achievement and share the thanks of winning the prize.

 

About Brad Timerson:  I am very surprised and deeply appreciative at having been named a DaBoll Award recipient.  And I am very glad to see the other coordinators recognized with this award.  It is certainly well deserved.  Thank you to all who voted for myself and this dedicated group of coordinators.  I began observing lunar occultations in the late 1960's and received yearly printouts of predictions from the USNO.  Soon I was helping David Dunham with the predicting of lunar occultations and sending out printed copies to IOTA members.  Then, along came  asteroidal occultations and the ability to compute and deliver all predictions via email.  It was soon after I recorded an occultation by Phocaea that I relaized IOTA needed a better way to report occultations.  Too many times, crucial information was missing from emailed reports.  The Excel report Form was born and, with the help of John Talbot, became a useful tool for reporting occultations.  A lunar form was also created, but the ability to report these occultations from within Occult   Jphn soon came up with a macro to read the details in the Excel Form into the format required for Occult.  No more transcription errors!  Now in its 11th year, the Form remains a useful tool for reporting asteroidal occultations with accuracy and with all the required observational information.