Albert Francis Arthur Lofley JonesOBE (9 August 1920 – 11 September 2013) was a New Zealandamateur astronomer, and a prolificvariable star andcometobserver, a member of the Variable Star Section and the Comet Section of theRoyal Astronomical Society of New Zealand.[1][2]
Albert Jones was born inChristchurch, New Zealand, in 1920 and was educated atTimaru Boys' High School. At the beginning of theSecond World War he joined the army, but in 1942 he was classified unfit for overseas service.[1] He worked as a miller in arolled oats mill, as a grocery shop owner and in a car assembly factory.[3] He died inNelson, New Zealand, in 2013.[4][5]
In 1963 he became the sixth astronomer in history to make 100,000 observations of variable stars and by 2004 he became the first to make more than 500,000 observations.[2] His visual brightness estimates were very precise: most observers can distinguish variations of one tenth of amagnitude, but Jones' measurements were reported to show a standard deviation of about one twentieth of a magnitude.[1] In 1946 he discovered the comet C/1946 P1 (Jones) and in 2000 he co-discovered, together with Japanese astronomerSyogo Utsunomiya the cometC/2000 W1 (Utsunomiya-Jones), becoming the oldest comet discoverer. In 1987 he co-discovered thesupernovaSN 1987A in theLarge Magellanic Cloud, which was the brightestnaked-eye supernova explosion since 1604.[3]
Jones' work was widely acknowledged. In 1968, he received theMerlin Silver Medal and Prize of theBritish Astronomical Association for his work in establishing accuratemagnitudes of comets.[1] In the1987 Queen's Birthday Honours, he was appointed anOfficer of the Order of the British Empire, for services to astronomy.[6] The following year, asteroid3152 Jones was named after him.[3] He won theAmateur Achievement Award of theAstronomical Society of the Pacific for his variable star and comet observations in 1998.[7] The comet C/2000 W1 discovery brought him theEdgar Wilson Award, administered by theSmithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, in 2001.[8] In 2004 he received an honoraryDoctorate of Science from theVictoria University of Wellington.[3]
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| Preceded by | Amateur Achievement Award of Astronomical Society of the Pacific 1998 | Succeeded by |
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