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Huachuca Astronomy Club—Speakers
David H. Levy
David Levy gives a lecture at JPL.
David H. Levy (born 1948) is a Canadian astronomerand science writer most famous for his
co-discovery in 1993 of Comet
Shoemaker-Levy 9, which collided with the planet Jupiter in 1994.
Levy was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, but moved to Vail, Arizona in 1979. He is married to Wendee Levy.
Levy has discovered 22 comets, either independently or with Gene and Carolyn S. Shoemaker, and has written over 30 books, mostly on astronomical subjects.
Periodic comets co-discovered include P/2006T1, 118P/Shoemaker-Levy, 129P/Shoemaker-Levy, 135P/Shoemaker-Levy, 137P/Shoemaker-Levy, 138P/Shoemaker-Levy, 145P/Shoemaker-Levy, and 181P/Shoemaker-Levy.
The asteroid 3673 Levy was named in his honour. Levy was awarded the C.A. Chant Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada in 1980. In 1993 he won the Amateur Achievement Award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.
In 2007, Levy received the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Edgar Wilson Award for the discovery of comets.
Topics
David Levy has spoken to the Huachuca Astronomy Club (HAC) many times. His presentations to the HAC began in 1980.
The HAC is honored and grateful for its long and enduring association and friendship with David Levy.
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David Levy gives a presentation to the HAC, July 22, 2005. |
Huachuca Astronomy Club Twenty-Fifth Anniversary
The Huachuca Astronomy Club (HAC) celebrated its 25th Anniversary in grand style
on Saturday, July 7, 2007. Over sixty club members and guests attended the event, held at the
Arizona Folklore Preserve, Sierra Vista, Arizona. The Social Register catered the affair, and
the Folklore Preserve volunteers ensured the dinner and speeches occurred without a hitch, in
spite of some monsoonal lightning causing the power and lights to flicker a couple of times.
(Above) David H. Levy (left) and HAC President Wayne Johnson (right)
celebrate the HAC's twenty-fifth anniversary.
(Click image for larger version.)
The celebration included world-famous astronomer and comet-discoverer
David H. Levy as the Guest Speaker, accompanied by his wife and fellow astronomer Wendee Levy.
David provided an eloquent and motivating presentation spanning his life-long interest in astronomy,
to include an entertaining story about the defining moment that sparked his interest in the field.
At the age of eight, while reluctantly attending summer camp, David spotted his first meteor. This
meteor sighting ignited his life-long passion for sky watching. He started to search for comets in
1965. Years later, David fortuitously captured an image of another meteor from the same shower whose
path crossed comet Tempel 1, the target of NASA’s Deep Impact mission. David connected comet-collisions with the origins and evolution of life on Earth. In theory, a comet, which contains carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen in ratios similar to that of human beings, colliding with the Earth a billion years ago, could have been the catalyst for carbon life forms, eventually leading to human beings intelligent enough to target a comet and hit it bulls-eye with an impactor in the pursuit of science. David also covered his long, entwined, yet enduring, relationship with the Huachuca Astronomy Club.
Astronomy Talk Radio, hosted by David H. Levy.
http://letstalkstars.com
 Speakers Index
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