[2] He was one of five winners of the 2009 Edgar Wilson Award[5] for his discovery on 27 August 2008 of 304P/Ory (P/2008 Q2 Ory), a periodic comet of the Jupiter family,[6] using a 24-inch f/3.9 reflector[7] at the Jura Observatory in Switzerland.

[2] In 2018, he was awarded a Gene Shoemaker NEO Grant which will improve the robotic survey he conducts in collaboration with Claudine Rinner at the Oukaïmeden Observatory (J43) in Morocco.

[9] In 2020, he and Claudine Rinner jointly received the Dorothea Klumpke - Isaac Roberts prize from the Société astronomique de France.

[1] At the Jura Observatory, located in Vicques, Switzerland, he made his most famous discovery, 304P/Ory, a periodic comet of the Jupiter family,[11] and also discovered over 234 asteroids (including unnumbered bodies) and two supernovae.

[2] At around 8:08 p.m. on 28 August he received notification from the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams (CBAT) that the object was in fact a periodic comet: the announcement ran, "An apparently asteroidal object discovered by Michel Ory (Delemont, Switzerland, on CCD images obtained with a 0.61-m f/3.9 reflector at Vicques; discovery observation tabulated below), which was posted on the Minor Planet Center's 'NEOCP' webpage, has been found by other CCD observers to be cometary.