Quote:
Originally Posted by higginsdj
Carl, I think you missed the point or saw it as an attack on what amateur astronomers are capable of. Perhaps I should reword 'Scientific benefit' here. If we have a field of study/observation that is under prescribed and a field of study/observation that is over prescribed, is there any actual 'scientific benefit' in adding additional observers to the field that is already over prescribed? The scientists I refer to are eminent and I will leave it at that and I would not like to name them lest they be tarnished by my interpretation of their words!
I think you have over reacted with some generalisations. There are a lot of scopes out there for the professionals to use (some as small as amateur scopes). I didn't mention Comets of Sn. I did say that rapid, transient events were immune to this view. However, NEO's, generally speaking, aren't. Amateur discoveries of NEO's account for an extremely small percentage of all the new objects found and the view is that those that are discovered would most likely have been picked up by the surveys within days. Now if amateurs wanted to concentrate on the known holes in the surveys, thats a different story, but amateur surveys avoid the same regions of sky as the professionals do for exactly the same reason! Again - what is the scientific benefit of this?
Survey scopes and systems are numerous. PanStarrs is just one. How about SDSS, SMASS, SkyMapper, APASS, PROMPT and ASAS (and these are just the ones I can roll off the top of my head) They aren't just single telescope systems either!
These professionals aren't stupid. They know exactly what amateurs are capable of doing. What they would like to see is better targeting of observations by amateurs. Thats the point/purpose of the 2012-2021 decadel survey as well - lets see what science actually needs to be done that is within the grasp of the amateur astronomer.
Cheers
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No I haven't. I know of quite a few professional scientist who do look down on amateur contributions, simply because they don't have that PhD under their belt and are not engaged in full time research. I'm also very aware of all the other surveys being done...it still leaves a huge gap in our knowledge despite the vast amounts of information pouring in daily. In any case, it takes time to assess this information and discoveries get missed all the time. The amateur community can spend far more time making the rounds, so to speak and keep an eye on the sky whereas the professional community can't. Most don't even get to use, upfront, a telescope anymore. They order the data to be used in their research and the telescope operators do all the observing. The closest many get to a scope is sitting in front of a computer and maybe remote operating one occasionally. There maybe a reasonable number of scopes out there for professionals to use but not as many as you might believe. They ration time out on the larger scopes (all scopes) quite frugally. That's why quite a few astronomers get their observing proposals rejected. You have to have a good proposal that will deliver good science before you can even get a look in a lot of the time. even then, you're not guaranteed of success.
The reason why amateur NEO discoveries account for a small percentage of NEO's found is that most amateurs don't target these objects religiously and their equipment isn't setup to do the work. Plus, how many amateurs actually have the money or time to do all the work that's required to run such a survey...not many, if any.
That's what needs to be realised. Not that the professionals know what the amateurs are capable of...not as many do know as you think. But if they want amateurs to be able to do the work that the professionals otherwise don't have the time to do...most professionals aren't full time observers/researchers, they have academic and other duties to do as well...then they should cough up the funds and the necessary training needed to bring those amateurs up to speed. They don't need PhD's, just polishing up for many. As you said, target their observations more efficiently and determine what science needs to be done. But that doesn't mean that the mundane work of variable and other observing should be cast aside. Like I mentioned, that is still vitally important. Professionals may like to think they have everything down pat, but they don't. That extra spectrum taken by "Joe Amateur" a day or so ago may hold the key to a problem they've been nagging on for years. What if they miss it, which is more than likely. Lost opportunities.