By diligently watching the skies, five amateur astronomers have been awarded a total of $30,000 for discovering new comets as part of the 2012 Edgar Wilson Award.

Comets are frozen balls of ice and dust left over from the solar system’s earliest days. They remain most of their lives in the far outer reaches beyond Pluto, usually venturing close to the sun only every few hundred years. As they approach the sun, comets melt a little, letting loose a tail of debris that gets swept behind them by the solar wind and increasing their brightness significantly. Hundreds of years ago, before astronomers knew exactly what comets were, the discovery of a new one was heralded as a great event, with the discoverer often becoming famous and being subsequently supported by a rich patron, usually a king.

Nearly all comet discoveries nowadays are made by automated telescopes which scan the skies with robotic eyes and check new appearances in a computer. But the Edgar Wilson Award celebrates the few lone amateurs that still practice the old ways of comet watching, scanning the skies during freezing cold nights to get that once-in-a-lifetime finding. Spotting comets is very competitive because the first person to report it gets the honor of having the comet named for him or herself.

The five winners this year all made their discoveries in 2011. For most of the recipients, it is their first time winning. The prize money was split evenly among the discoveries. The winners are:

Terry Lovejoy of Australia got $7,500 for finding Comet Lovejoy (official name: C/2011 W3). Discovered late in the year, Comet Lovejoy was a sun-diver that performed a remarkable feat when it plunged into the sun’s outer atmosphere and emerged from the searing heat still intact.

Leonid Elenin of Russia won $7,500 for discovering Comet Elenin (P/2011 N1), which can be seen traveling over several nights in August 2011 in the video below. Comet Elenin broke up in October.

Artyom Novichonok and Vladimir Gerke of Russia received $3,750 each for spotting Comet Novichonok-Gerke (P/2011 R3). Both are first-time winners of the award. Along with Vitali Nevski, Novichonok discovered a comet in September that has the potential to become so bright it could be visible during the day, perhaps making it the comet of the century, later this year.

Fred Bruenjes from the U.S. got $7,500 for finding Comet Bruenjes (C/2012 C2). It is also his first time winning the award.

Image: Comet Lovejoy as seen by astronauts on the International Space Station. NASA Earth Observatory Flickr

Video: NASA/STEREO