In 1994, we received fifteen applications. Awards by our Grants Committee, totaling $13,377, were as follows (principal investigator indicated in parentheses):

1. Braeside Observatory (Robert E. Fried). $2,500 for the funding of computer time expenses in conjunction with a current National Science Foundation grant (AST-9218002) awarded to Dr. Fried and two professional astronomers as Co-PI's, for the study of selected cataclysmic variable stars. The scientific goals of this National Science Foundation grant are to study the relationship between mass transfer, binary evolution and the structure of accretion disks.

2. University of Montreal (Grant M. Hill). $1,200 for the purchase of two narrow-band Hß filters for use in the Observatoire du Mont Mégantic polarimeter. This will allow the polarimeter to conduct a survey, searching for magnetic fields in O-type stars, to study how magnetic fields alter and control the winds and circumstellar environments of Bp stars, and to study how the magnetic fields of Ap stars affect the surface distribution of elements.

3. University of Southern Maine (Gerald J. LaSala, Jr.). $1,800 for the purchase of a hard disk and software for a computer workstation. This equipment will be used to advance research programs in the analysis of ultraviolet images of stars and galaxies and in automated classification of stellar spectra. These lines of research contribute to the understanding of unusual astronomical objects and to our ability to handle and analyze data from modern detectors.

4. University of Wisconsin Oshkosh (Michael M. Briley). $2,499 for the purchase of a magneto-optical disk drive for use as a mass storage device during the image-reduction stages of research. The space required to store modern astronomical images has far outstripped conventional media solutions, especially when multiple data sets are required to be simultaneously at hand. With a magneto-optical device, it will be possible to switch projects with only a momentary interruption. The long delays for tape archiving and retrieval, as well as the need for future expansion of hard disk space, will be eliminated.

5. University of Victoria (Jeremy B. Tatum). $1,000 for the purchase of film to be used in conjunction with a 10-inch photographic Schmidt telescope for the establishment of photographic archives for "precovery" (i.e., when a new object is discovered, the preliminary orbit can be calculated backwards in time and the archives can be searched for previously unrecognized images of the new object). The resulting exposures will be in the ecliptic and would contain asteroid images (down to magnitude 16) and will result in the production of approximately 2,000 published asteroidal positions of permanent and archival value.

6. Ball State University (Thomas H. Robertson). $1,575 for the purchase of three two-inch square intermediate-band interference filters for use in the establishment of the limitations of using Charge-Coupled Device (CCD) photometry to distinguish between red giant and dwarf stars and to establish the luminosity classes of such stars detected on objective-prism surveys. The information gathered during this process will be used to design large-scale semiautomated photometric CCD surveys for red dwarf stars in the vicinity of the sun in the Milky Way Galaxy. These stars may contribute a substantial fraction of the dark matter which has been found to exist in many galaxies.

7. David B. Shaffer. $303 for the purchase of an Almagest computer software program. This software reads the Space Telescope Digitized Sky Survey CD ROMs. It will be used in the preparation of finding charts for optical observing programs and in the identification of radio sources. An observing program to monitor variability of the brightest optical quasars will benefit from CD ROM finding charts. These observations will help elucidate the power source in quasars. Radio source identification should add to the number of known superluminal objects which are studied for their cosmological implications.

8. Swarthmore College (John E. Gaustad). $2,500 for the purchase of an automated filter wheel to be used in the conduction wide-angle CCD imaging studies of the sky, especially at 656 nm wavelengths. Wide-angle images to faint intensity levels will provide detailed information on the structure of the ionized components of the interstellar medium. This information is necessary for understanding the dynamics of the interstellar gas. In addition, more accurate measurement of the emission at optical wavelengths will allow better modeling of the Galactic emission at microwave lengths.