2024 EUROPLANET IBERIAN AMATEUR ASTRONOMY AWARD

in Solar System Astronomy and Exoplanets

The Europlanet Society, through its Spain & Portugal Regional Hub,will award an individual amateur astronomer or a team of amateurs observing from Spain & Portugal or from Spanish or Portuguese nationalities for their contribution to amateur astronomy in solar system astronomy and exoplanets in the last 3 years (2022-2024).

The prize will use the bases below:

• The prize could be awarded for an individual discovery, a set of relevant observations or with special repercussion in the field of solar system astronomy or exoplanets. The prize could also be awarded for the development of novel instrumentation techniques in the amateur world or for the development of free software wildly used in the amateur community towards analysis of solar system astronomical observations or exoplanet transit analysis. The contribution to be awarded will have to be done in the period from January 2021 to December 2024.

• Participants must be from Spanish or Portuguese nationalities or amateur observers whose contribution has been developed from Spain or Portugal. Participants do not need to be members of the Europlanet Society.

• Areas that are traditionally close to solar system astronomy and exoplanets such as observations of the Sun or stellar variability cannot be considered for the prize.

Applications will be submitted in electronic format (PDF) using the following Application form and must be limited to 2+1 pages. The application will include a presentation of the individual or observing team, a summary of its trajectory in amateur astronomy and a description of the contribution to be evaluated (2 pages). Technical information describing instrumentation or other technical details of the contribution can be included in a 3^rd page. Relevant figures can be included in the application.

Language: Applications can be written in Spanish, Portuguese or English.

● Applications must be submitted by 31 March 2025 

● The Evaluation Board will be formed by members of the Europlanet Society Spain & Portugal Regional Hub coordination committee, excluding members with possible conflicts of interest. For this prize, the committee will also invite relevant amateur astronomers and professional astronomers working with amateurs and not presenting themselves for this prize.

● The decision taken by the Evaluation Board will be final.

● Exceptionally, the Evaluation Board may decide to award more than one winner for each prize or declare the competition void or cancelled.

● Applications must fulfil all requirements to be considered for evaluation. Any non-veracity in the application would imply disqualification.

● Participation in the award implies implicit authorization for publication of the name of the participant and the summary of the contribution presented.

● The awarded contribution will have the opportunity to present its contribution to the Spanish Community of Ciencias Planetarias y Exploración del Sistema Solar (CPESS) in its regular Ciencias Planetarias y Exploración del Sistema Solar meeting in Málaga (26-30 May 2025) either online or presentially.

The Prize will consist of a diploma, a symbolic gift and an invitation to present the work to the planetary science community congress CPESS-8, with an official announcement of the Europlanet Society recognizing the value of amateur astronomy for professional astronomers and researchers in space exploration.

Application form

From June 2 to 5, 2023, a face-to-face workshop has been held at the Calar Alto Astronomical Observatory, organized and paid for by Europlanet, on the use and observation through the Europlanet Telescope Network and, specifically in this case, with the 1.23 m from Calar Alto. The fundamental objective of the workshop, directed by Ricardo Hueso and Itziar Gárate (UPV/EHU), has been to familiarize the participants with the operation of this telescope, and the instrumentation associated with it, in order to facilitate access to these resources of the Europlanet Telescope Network by the amateur community.

1.23 m telescope (Calar Alto)		3.5 m telescope (Calar Alto)

The participants in the workshop, a total of 16 amateurs (Spain and Portugal) selected with the collaboration of the Iberian Hub of the Europlanet Society among relevant amateurs in planetary sciences, have shared experiences and have been able to make observations in two time windows with a total of 4.5 hours that the clear sky has allowed during these days.

The observation objects, two comets and several asteroids, had been previously selected based on their astrometric interest and other particular conditions inherent to them.

The workshop program has included a daytime session on the Europlanet Telescope Network, but most of the activities have been carried out during the nights of these days with observations and practices with the 1.23 m telescope and the Andor iKon-XL 230 camera, installed a few days before and that had not yet been characterized, something that could be done to a large extent during the course of the workshop.

Our friends from amateur astronomy in Portugal celebrate their "7th Concentration of Telescopes" on May 28 and 29. For some time now, and with the aim of strengthening ties, we have been talking about developing joint activities and participating in them as a single Iberian group. This is a good opportunity to strengthen this type of relationship under the sky and promote knowledge and coexistence among astronomers.

In addition to the outreach talks and scheduled cultural activities, the strong part of the meeting is the concentration of telescopes, so it is an excellent opportunity to attend with your own teams. There are also scheduled workshops on solar observation, photometry, telescope collimation and a used material fair.

These Conferences have the recognition of the Portuguese NOC of the IAU.

In this edition, a part of the program is reserved for Spanish associations, (Astronomical Association of Plasencia (Mintaka), Astróbriga of Ciudad Rodrigo and OSAE of Salamanca), in addition to the Federation itself.

Website - Program