2012 IOTA Conference

IOTA Annual Meeting

October 19-21

College of Southern Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada USA

Homer F. DaBoll2012 Award

IOTA Annual Meeting

October 19-21

College of Southern Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada USA

BackgroundTo recognize significant contributions to

occultation science and to the work of the IOTA • Name honors Homer F. DaBoll (1920 – 1990)

– Organizer of grazing occultation expeditions in Midwest USA beginning in late 1960’s

– Suggested the name “International Occultation Timing Association”

– Founding officer of IOTA 1975 (secretary/treasurer)– First editor of Occultation Newsletter, from 1974

through 1990• Previous awardees: 2007 Dave Herald, 2008 Edwin

Goffin, 2009 Steve Preston, 2010 Hristo Pavlov, 2011 Scotty Degenhardt

2012 Award Selection

• Nominations were solicited in August• Award committee formed at the same time

– Dave Herald, NSW, Australia (recipient 2007 award)– Edwin Goffin, Belgium (recipient 2008 award)– Steve Preston, USA (recipient 2009 award)– Hristo Pavlov, Australia (recipient 2010 award)– Scotty Degenhardt (recipient 2011 award)– Colin Haig, Ontario, Canada– Robert Buchheim, California, USA– Terrence Redding, Florida, USA (chairman)

• Award committee goals:– select recipient of 2012 Homer DaBoll award

Eligibility (current)

Who is eligible for the award?

• Anyone who has made significant contribution to occultation science or the work of the IOTA

• Excluding sitting IOTA officers & award committee

• IOTA membership not required

Who can make Nominations?

• No defined restrictions at this time

• “Call for Nominations” made via Yahoo group effectively restricts nominators to active occultation community

Deliberations

• Total of 10 nominations received, from 9 nominators– All were excellent candidates

• All communication conducted by e-mail– private to the committee– independent of IOTA officers

• This year we again made a deliberate effort to encourage others to forward the request for nominations to other lists, mail groups and astronomy related organizations

Deliberations, cont.

• Approach was “discussion to reach a consensus” (not “majority voting”), considering:– Documentation provided with nominations– Experience & personal knowledge of the candidate’s

contributions.

• Members were asked to select their top picks to be considered and discussed.

• The top pick was unanimous in the first round

Recipient Described

• Fabulous choice, and I feel a proper and deserving one!

• For writing software which revolutionized occultation data processing, with dramatically improved results in timing and light level measurements.

• For unique and sustained contributions in developing software to predict, and analyze and archive observations of, all types of occultations and eclipses.