In 1998, we received 12 applications. Awards by our Grants Committee totaling $15,346 were as follows (principal investigator indicated in parentheses):

1. Florida Institute of Technology (Frederick A. Ringwald). $1,170.97 for the purchase of an HP LaserJet 6MP printer and three toner cartridges. This printer will assist all in the research department in the support of a project carrying out an observational search of a new fundamental class of astronomical objects, Thorne-Zytkow object. The F.A.R. gratefully acknowledges the donation by the Institute for Space Observations of the funds for this grant.

2. The American Association of Variable Star Observers (Janet A. Mattei). $2,500 for the purchase of a computer dedicated to running a WWW and FTP server, as well as host the AAVSO web and FTP sites in a manner to allow more efficient and faster distribution of astronomical and educational variable star data to the scientific community.

3. The Citadel (Saul J. Adelman). $2,000 for the purchase of Strömgren filters with the Vatican Observatory Group in order to place observations from both observatories on the Strömvil system to characterize the properties of cluster stars — temperature, gravity, metal-richness and whether they are single or binary. For educational purposes, the best of the cluster images will be combined into true color images and a WWW page in English and Spanish will be created.

4. Long Island University, Brooklyn Campus (M. Chantale Damas). $2,490 for the purchase of a complete computer system, including Linux, for the purpose of performing research involving spatial distributions of supernovae in galaxies.

5. Appalachian State University (Richard O. Gray). $2,445 for the purchase of three Strömgren CCD uvby filters to be used to discover and analyze faint stars of astrophysical interest — per-main-sequence A-type stars, supergiant A, F and G-type stars, and subdwarf O and B-type stars.

6. Florida International University (Walter V. Van Hamme). $2,240 for the purchase of a set of three Strömgren filters to be used with the CCD camera at the Southeastern Association for Research in Astronomy (SARA) for the purpose of expanding SARA's photometric capabilities. The filter set will be permanently available to all SARA users.

7. University of Victoria, Canada (Geraint F. Lewis). $2,500 for the purchase of a computer workstation on which high resolution simulations of the destruction of the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy will be undertaken and from which information will be obtained on the powerful constaints on the dark matter content and distribution within the Sagittarius Dwarf.