Richard Huziak (born March 18, 1957) is a Canadian amateur astronomer. The International Astronomical Union named main-belt asteroid 4143 Huziak after him. A former president of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada Saskatoon Centre for six years and a prominent member of the

American Association of Variable Star Observers The American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) is an international nonprofit organization, founded in 1911, focused on coordinating, analyzing, publishing, and archiving variable star observations made largely by amateur astronomers. ...

, Huziak has over 181,000 observations of variable stars to his credit. He received the Chant Medal from the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada in 2001, the Service Medal from the same organization in 2009, and

Janet Mattei Janet may refer to: Names * Janet (given name) * Janet (French singer) (1939–2011) Surname * Charles Janet (1849–1932), French engineer, inventor and biologist, known for the Left Step periodic table * Jules Janet (1861–1945), French psych ...

presented Huziak with the AAVSO's Director's Award in 2003.

Biography

Born in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, Huziak attended elementary and high school in Yorkton, but moved to Saskatoon in 1976 to attend the University of Saskatchewan. He has resided in Saskatoon since, working as a manufacturing engineering technologist for Develcon Electronics, Joytec, International Road Dynamics and

SED Systems SED Systems is a communications company supplying both systems and services to the satellite industry. Originating in 1965, SED is located in the Innovation Place Research Park on the University of Saskatchewan campus. As an operating division ...

. Huziak is an environmentalist addressing light pollution concerns in Saskatchewan. His work here prompted the Saskatchewan Eco-Network (SEN) to name Huziak a Saskatchewan Environmental Champion. That organization awarded him the Environmental Activist Individual Award in 2007. He was instrumental in the designation of the Cypress Hills Dark Sky Preserve in September 2004, then Canada's largest dark-sky preserve. His work with

Parks Canada Parks Canada (PC; french: Parcs Canada),Parks Canada is the applied title under the Federal Identity Program; the legal title is Parks Canada Agency (). is the agency of the Government of Canada which manages the country's 48 National Parks, th ...

led to the designation of

Grasslands National Park Grasslands National Park (French: ') is a Canadian national park located near the village of Val Marie, Saskatchewan, and one of 44 national parks and park reserves in Canada's national park system (though one of only two in Saskatchewan its ...

as a dark-sky preserve in October 2009, overtaking Cypress Hills as Canada's then-largest dark-sky preserve. Huziak continues to advise various levels of government and organizations on light pollution abatement to reduce light trespass, energy waste, and environmental degradation. In August 2021, Huziak was nominated by the

Canadian Space Agency The Canadian Space Agency (CSA; french: Agence spatiale canadienne, ASC) is the national space agency of Canada, established in 1990 by the ''Canadian Space Agency Act''. The president is Lisa Campbell, who took the position on September 3, 2020 ...

as Canada's amateur astronomer representative to the International Astronomical Union and was accepted as an Honorary Member. Huziak was present during the discovery of 185P/Comet Petriew in August 2001, namesake of Vance Petriew of the Regina Centre, RASC, and was the first to the recognize the object discovered as a comet.

References

External links

A current list of refereed papers
from

NASA ADS The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) is an online database of over 16 million astronomy and physics papers from both peer reviewed and non-peer reviewed sources. Abstracts are available free online for almost all articles, and full scanned a ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Huziak, Richard 1957 births Living people 20th-century Canadian astronomers Amateur astronomers Canadian environmentalists People from Yorkton