One of the few physical periodicals I still subscribe to is Sky & Telescope. Paging through the new October 2009 edition I found a nice section devoted to a few remarkable amateur astronomers. Astronomy turns out to be an area of science where amateurs still make serious contributions (oddly enough amateurs invented astrophysics in the mid 1800s) and some amateurs do amazing stuff.
One of the people featured is Caroline Moore. At 14 she is the youngest person to discover a supernova - not only that, but it turns out to be the least powerful supernova ever seen (still three orders of magnitude more energy was released than a regular nova).
She also wrote the commentary on the last page of the magazine - give it a read if you spot a copy in a bookstore.
A bit of searching turns up a few videos. (check out Rachael Maddow's interview)
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