- 1978 Tuthill Comet Award Roger Tuthill for discovering Comet Machholz (1978L)
- 1985 Tuthill Comet Award Roger Tuthill for discovering Comet Machholz (1986e)
- 1986 Tuthill Comet Award Roger Tuthill for discovering Periodic Comet Machholz 1 (1986e)
- 1994 Walter H. Haas Award Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers
- 1995 Machholz was the recipient of the G. Bruce Blair Medal
- 2000 Peggy Haas Service Award Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers Service to Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers
- 2005 Edgar Wilson Award Harvard’s Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for discovering Comet Machholz C/2004 Q2
- 2010 Edgar Wilson Award Harvard’s Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for discovering Comet Machholz C/2010 F4
- 2017 Asteroid 245983 Machholz discovered by Kazimieras Černis was named in honor of Donald Machholz in November 2017
- 2018 Edgar Wilson Award Harvard’s Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for discovering Comet C/2018 V1 Machholz-Fujikawa-Iwamoto
- 2021 Leslie C. Peltier Award Astronomical League for the visual discovery of 12 comets and contributions to astronomy
2021-10-22