Paul Boltwood is a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 amateur astronomer

Amateur astronomy

Amateur astronomy, also called backyard astronomy and stargazing, is a hobby whose participants enjoy watching the night sky , and the plethora of objects found in it, mainly with portable telescopes and binoculars...

. He is engaged in developing hardware

Hardware

Hardware is a general term for equipment such as keys, locks, hinges, latches, handles, wire, chains, plumbing supplies, tools, utensils, cutlery and machine parts. Household hardware is typically sold in hardware stores....

 and software for deep sky

Deep sky

Deep-sky objects are astronomical objects other than individual stars and solar system objects . The classification is used for the most part by amateur astronomers to denote visually observed faint naked eye and telescopic objects such as star clusters, nebulae and galaxies.-Origins and...

 imaging and in research of brightness variations in active galactic nuclei. He was also acknowledged for his studies of near-nucleus activity in Comet Hyakutake

Comet Hyakutake

Comet Hyakutake is a comet, discovered on January 31, 1996, which passed very close to Earth in March of that year. It was dubbed The Great Comet of 1996; its passage near the Earth was one of the closest cometary approaches of the previous 200 years. Hyakutake appeared very bright in the night...

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In 1995 he was awarded the Chant Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada

Royal Astronomical Society of Canada

The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada is a national, non-profit, charitable organization devoted to the advancement of astronomy and related sciences. At present, there are 29 local branches of the Society, called centres, located in towns and cities across the country from St. John's,...

. This medal is awarded, not more than once a year, to an amateur astronomer resident in Canada on the basis of the value of the work carried out in astronomy and closely allied fields of the original investigation.

In 2000 he was awarded with the Amateur Achievement Award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific

Astronomical Society of the Pacific

The Astronomical Society of the Pacific is a scientific and educational organization, founded in San Francisco on February 7, 1889. Its name derives from its origins on the Pacific Coast, but today it has members all over the country and the world...

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Asteroid

Asteroid

Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...

 8785 Boltwood

8785 Boltwood

8785 Boltwood is a main-belt asteroid discovered on September 5, 1978 by N. S. Chernykh at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory.- External links :*...

was named in his honour.