(Kansas City, MO)–The Astronomical League is pleased to announce the top finishers in the competition for its National Young Astronomers Award Program (NYAA).

The first-place winner in the NYAA program is Justin Tieman from Lee’s Summit, Missouri. His project was entitled “Alien Worlds.” The hypothesis of this experiment is that an amateur astronomer may be able to detect an exoplanet with only a backyard telescope and using differential photometry software. His conclusions verified this hypothesis. Also a second project “Space Rocks” involved precise light measurements in asteroids.

The second-place winner is Travis Le who lives in Aica, Hawaii. His work “Determining ‘Hot Spots’ Through Correlations of CMES and Solar Flares” was able to determine five "hot spots" on the Sun where possible CMES(Coronal Mass Ejections) could occur.

Brian Graham from Beaverton, Oregon is the third-place finisher. His project attempted to answer the question regarding whether telescope tracking errors had any effect on the accuracy of exoplanet light curves. These results support the hypothesis and imply the effectiveness of the Exoplanet Transit Tool.
The top two finishers have won an expenses-paid trip to receive their awards at ALCon, the national convention of the Astronomical League, being held in Chicago, IL7-4 thru 7-7-2012.