Don Machholz

Donald Edward Machholz was an American amateur astronomer who was the leading visual comet discoverer, credited with the visual discovery of 12 comets that bear his name. Machholz spent more than 9,000 hours comet-hunting in a career spanning over 50 years. These comets include the periodic comets 96P/Machholz, 141P/Machholz, the non-periodic C/2004 Q2 that were visible with binoculars in the northern sky in 2004 and 2005, C/2010 F4, and C/2018 V1 In 1985, comet Machholz 1985-e, was discovered using a homemade cardboard telescope with a wide aperture, 10 inches across, that gave it a broader field of view than most commercial telescopes. Amateur astronomer Machholz utilized a variety of methods in his comet discoveries, in 1986 using 29×130 binoculars he discovered 96P/Machholz. Machholz was one of the inventors of the Messier Marathon, which is a race to observe all the Messier objects in a single night.