It doesn't quite match winning the jackpot of a Powerball lottery, but two amateur astronomers will get several thousand dollars richer, thanks to a generous bequest made by a late American businessman. Albert Jones of New Zealand and Syogo Utsunomiya of Japan will share the third annual Edgar Wilson Award for amateur comet discovery. According to the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, which administers the award through the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams (CBAT), Jones and Utsunomiya won the award for their discovery of C/2000 W1. The amount of this year's cash prize is still to be determined by the award's trustee. (In 1999, it was worth about $20,000.) Not since Edward Emerson Barnard in the 1880s have amateurs stood to gain such sizable financial bounty for their discoveries.

Utsunomiya first sighted C/2000 W1 on November 18th last year while comet hunting with his 25x150 binoculars. Other observers were unsuccessful in confirming the fast-moving, 8th-magnitude interloper until Jones unknowingly picked it up a week later. Jones chanced upon the object while star-hopping to the variable star T Apodis with his 3-inch finderscope.

This is Jones's second comet find; his first one, in August 1946, was also discovered accidentally while he was locating a variable star. At 80, Jones holds the record of being the oldest comet discoverer.

"It feels very nice to win the Wilson award," he told Sky & Telescope. "Dan Green of CBAT was the one who informed me that I had qualified for the award. I've been retired since 1985 and I receive a small pension from the government, so the cash prize would come in handy. I plan to make improvements to my 12½-inch telescope and perhaps replace my ancient computer with a more modern one!"

Established in 1998 in memory of Edgar Wilson of Lexington, Kentucky, the prize is bestowed only to amateur astronomers who, in a given year, find one or more new comets using amateur, privately owned equipment. Discoveries can be visual, photographic, or electronic (with CCDs). In years when no such discoveries are made, the SAO will present the award to amateurs who have made major contributions to promoting cometary studies. Seven individuals and two teams have won the first two awards — six in 1999 and three in 2000. Long interested in astronomy himself, Wilson died in 1976.