In mid-February, The Planetary Society launched its latest campaign to help astronomers observe potentially dangerous asteroids.

After a near-Earth asteroid is found, its trajectory must be refined to determine whether it might one day hit Earth. Doing this can require multiple follow-up observations from all over the world—more than the professionals can handle on their own. These observations also reveal characteristics like an asteroid’s spin rate, and determine whether what at first appeared to be one asteroid is actually a binary pair.

That's where our NEO Shoemaker grant program comes in. Since 1997, we've been helping fund amateur astronomers who observe near-Earth asteroids. We collect donor funding and ask the amateur astronomy community for proposals, and then award grants to a handful of winners. Most of the funding is used to buy telescope components like sensitive CCD cameras.

Shoemaker winners are required to send us status reports for two years. But we also encourage all of our past award recipients to stay in touch.

Recently, we asked for a round of new updates. Here are some reports from our asteroid observers, who are quite literally trying to save the world. Many also threw in some other astronomical goodies, which we've included below.

Robert Holmes

Astronomical Research Institute (ARI), Northern Illinois

2015 grant: $5,500 to purchase more sensitive CCD camera for 1.3-meter telescope

2013 grant: $6,662 to purchase CCD camera for re-commissioned 0.76 meter telescope

2010 grant: $1,405 to purchase blue, visible, red, infrared and clear telescope filters

2009 grant: $7,000 to purchase CCD camera to use on 0.6-meter, 0.8-meter and 1.2-meter telescopes

2007 grant: $8,000 to purchase CCD camera for 0.81-meter telescope

Holmes is a five-time Shoemaker grant winner, and his observatory is a world-leader in NEO observations. The facility recently began focusing the majority of its efforts on under-observed asteroids fainter than the 22nd magnitude (in other words, very faint).

The strategy has paid off: In 2016, the observatory made more NEO observations than any other facility on Earth in the span of one year—ever. Out of 17,113 total measures, 1,093 were of 22nd magnitude asteroids, and 177 were of 23rd magnitude asteroids.

Donald Pray

Sugarloaf Mountain Observatory, Massachusetts

2015 grant: $6,690 to replace failing CCD camera

2013 grant: $8,070 for the mirror, structure, and focuser of a new 0.5-meter telescope

2007 grant: $7,500 to upgrade and reactivate 0.35-meter telescope

Pray, a three-time grant recipient, purchased a new CCD camera using his 2015 funding. He has since been credited with the discovery of five binary asteroids. He contributed photometric data for three others, sending out CBETs (Central Bureau for Electronic Telegrams—a sort-of email alert list for astronomers) with each discovery.

Luca Buzzi

G. V. Schiaparelli observatory, northern Italy

2015 grant: $9,995 to install a CCD camera on a new 0.84-meter telescope

After receiving his grant funding, Buzzi purchased his new CCD camera. Four months later, the primary mirror for his new 0.84-meter telescope finally arrived, and his team prepared the observatory for operations. Buzzi sent us this first light photo of M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy: