8900 AAVSO (1995 UD2) is a main belt asteroid discovered on October 24, 1995 by Dennis di Cicco, Senior Editor at Sky and Telescope magazine, at his observatory in Sudbury, Massachusetts. The asteroid maintains an absolute magnitude of 12.9.
The Minor Planet, named on 1 May 2003, honors the American Association of Variable Star Observers for several years a professional neighbor of di Cicco's. The AAVSO is an astronomical pro-am organization that promotes the study of variable stars to both amateur and professional astronomers, maintaining the largest database of variable star observations in the world.
The Minor Planet Center Citation reads
(8900) AAVSO = 1995 UD2
Discovered 1995 Oct. 24 by D. di Cicco at Sudbury.
One of the premier astronomical organizations, the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) was founded in 1911 by amateur William Tyler Olcott, following Harvard astronomer Edward C. Pickering's prescient vision of a collaboration between amateurs and professionals in the name of science.