[higginsdj]

Hi Rob,

Wow, a truly honest appraisal of the state of things. Your main theme appears quite valid - some other points to consider.

On the whole most amateurs (myself included) are data collectors but as many professionals will attest to, amateurs have many skills that the professionals simply do not possess some that have been mentioned:
Project Management,
Analysis,
Computing Skills,
Technical writing, authoring and publishing skills.

Don't get me wrong, the pro's have these skills as they need to develop them - but they are not well tuned and the Pro's can, in fact, be classed as the amateurs in these areas. Yes - they have done the hard yards - in the science - but everything else is likely self taught or OJT.

The comment about scientists being handed the data for analysis is not true though. The technicians will drive the scope and take the images, change the filters etc but the raw images are left for the scientists to FTP to their own PC's to calibrate, measure and then analyse.

Working out the spin rate of an asteroid or the period of a binary star, measuring the physical size of an asteroid or uncovering the binary nature and physical parameters of the system are all scientific endeavors - yes we didn't discover the means of undertaking the analysis - but many of us still undertake the analysis - just like the pro's do.

But, of course, this could still be deemed to be just data collection. So, what is 'real' science. ie 10 years ago, asteroids were considered to be too small to have moons - is uncovering their binary nature 'real' science? Theorising why they are binary is probably 'real' science - so is theoretical science the only thing that can be considered 'real' science?

Your point about amateur involvement being minimal, does of course depend on which aspect of the science you are looking at. In specialist areas, there are more amateurs than pro's (the work I do) which is perhaps why amateurs win grants in this field (my mentor in the states is an amateur and he has won grants from NASA). From a figures standpoint, 128 binary asteroids are known, 84 Main Belt of which 44 are amateur discoveries.

Of course 'study' and hard yards aspect of years of study etc doesn't stop some of us pursuing the study aspects for ourselves (there are many here who have or are on their way toward various levels of degrees in the science). But you point is well taken as a common theme from the postings to date indicates a lack of knowledge or skill in say math or physics but no mention about the desire to gain said knowledge. From my own experience to date - it's not rocket science though it can be quite a journey!

Note that I am NOT taking sides in this discussion and all points are valid as they have an impact on amateur involvement in astronomy.

The discussion is certainly getting interesting.

Cheers