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What's the point in amateur astronomy?


popeye85

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I have heard lots of scientists and professional astronomer's saying that the amateur field can still play a big part in pushing the boundary's of knowledge in astronomy and it understanding of the universe but what things are they talking about? Has anyone on here made any sort of contribution before and how do you go about helping the pros with their work?

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Many amateurs have discovered new comets, some by accident, others by dedicated observations.
There's still lots amateurs can be involved in. The BAA  have sections that amateurs partake in, for example Solar activity detection, which
indicates the onset of Auroral activity. Meteors, etc.
https://britastro.org/section_front/8

 

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Passing on enthusiasm and interest to the next generation of potential astronauts and scientists via outreach and just general discussion. All my kids friends know I'm into this, though I think I may have put my son off a bit with going on about it all the time. 

I guess the contribution to the pro's is a bit delayed. 

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Logically there's no more point in amateur astronomy than there is in, say, mountaineering, gardening or computer games but if either float your boat or tick all your boxes then the interest can be all consuming. The great thing about amateur astronomy is just that, it's not professional. Within reason you can do what you like when you like without the constraints of producing anything of value except enjoyment. For every beginner, each new object viewed is a discovery.   :icon_biggrin:

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My astrophysics masters project was photometric variations in T-Tauri stars. While it was conducted at the University physics building (observatory was on the roof) we were using amateur level equipment (LX200 and a SBIG CCD camera*) and we collected some very interesting data which was used in follow up research by both students and professionals. While perhaps we were able to analyse the data in more sophisticated ways than a typical amateur the raw data can be made available to those who have the techniques and knowledge if the data collector does not.  I think this can be a very rewarding area of amateur astronomy for reasonably advanced amateurs.

 

*BTW, to put into context, even with the f/6.3 focal reducer we were limited to a field of less than 10 arc minutes such was the size of the CCD chip. This was quite a few years ago!

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As I understand it, professional astronomers are limited in the time and FoV that they have on instruments, be it visual, X-ray, radio waves etc. They also collect a mass of data which they are unable to trawl through. Amateurs on the other hand have all the time in the world. This is part of the reason for Galaxy Zoo.

https://www.galaxyzoo.org/

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I enjoy the relaxed pursuit of visual observing but I also submit data from occultations. This can either lunar or asteroidal. For example,  Lunar occultations can reveal double stars or a change in the gap between them. Asteroidal occultations can reveal the shape of the asteroids and even reveal moons of asteroids. Recently, ground based observations of an occultation by Pluto produced useful data regarding its atmosphere, which the New Horizons team could combine with their own data gathered from the New Horizons flyby of Pluto. 

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