[Peter Ward]

Not sure I want to give this any more oxygen.... but when I used the expression "Fluff and Stuff"...and I'm not sure whether this is even a mainstream term....

.....I was attempting to allude to the notion amateurs do:
not very important astronomy (fuff, e.g. pretty pictures like me) and more important science (stuff).

Odd that no-one asked me to clarify this.

I still maintain it was unlikley to be "the future of astronomy" as most amateurs simply didn't have the: training, aperture, spectrum, computing horsepower, stuff in orbit, or resources to discover the "next big thing".

At no time had I stated amateur research was worthless.

Yet many got their nickers in a knot either over the former observation or perhaps it was my coin of term expressing the same. I do not, nor never will be, a PC apologist, and simply calling it as it see it.

Just so we are are clear: I do not think amateurs are the future of astronomy, however, I agree whole heartedly amateurs can still make contributions to the science.