dennis-conti

Dennis Conti earned his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from Purdue University. After retiring from a career in telecommunications with Hughes Network Systems, Dennis became an avid deep sky and planetary imager. He then moved on to the detection of exoplanets and currently is Chair of AAVSO’s Exoplanet Section.

In 2016, Dennis headed up a collaboration of amateur astronomers around the globe who provided ground-based observations in support of a Hubble science team’s study of some 15 exoplanets. Dennis is currently a member of the TESS exoplanet follow-up team and has worked closely with the TESS Science Team to qualify AAVSO members as official participants in the TESS ground-based follow-up program, with over 26 AAVSO members now part of that program. He also developed the TESS submission guidelines and the software for detecting false positives, both of which have benefited the entire TESS team.

Dennis is author of “A Practical Guide to Exoplanet Observing” (see www.astrodennis.com) that is used widely by amateur astronomers and educational institutions. Dennis is co-author of over 50 exoplanet discovery papers, including a recent publication in Nature. He has given presentations at numerous conferences and local astronomy clubs, as well as online exoplanet courses.

For his contributions to TESS and other exoplanet activities, Dennis was awarded the American Astronomical Society’s 2020 Chambliss Amateur Astronomy Achievement Award


Dennis lives in Annapolis, MD and from his modest size telescope he is able to conduct exoplanet observations even in moderately light-polluted skies.