Quote:
Originally Posted by AstroJunk
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wavytone
3. Upto the mid 1980's, keen amateurs with the right gear could make minor contributions to astronomy. That is pretty much finished now, thanks to the technological advances on several fronts.
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Got to pull you up on that one - Australian amateur astronomers are world leaders in research and discovery. We are somewhat drowned out in the noise of a million astrophotographers taking the same photos of the same objects, but we're very much alive 
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Oh my, Wavytone, you need to look around a bit more! Jonathan is quite right. This morning I was at the post office, sending a memory stick with approx 3 minutes of astro-video on it to professional astronomers in Rio de Janiro. Why do they want it? Turns out there is a possibility that if I didn't actually record the solid evidence of TNO 90482 Orcus itself during an occultation event on 1st March that I may have seen a graze of it's (possible) atmosphere. It's going to take some fancy data-cruching to find out, but I'm tinkled pink to be asked to do this even if it turns out to be negative result, and its part of why I got involved with occultation observations using video - being on the leading of discovery and increasing knowledge about our solar system. Just little ol' me in my backyard with about $4K worth of basic astro gear. How is that not making a contribution?