Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave2042
Astronomy seems one of the few fields where amateurs are still in a position to do genuine valuable research.
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Another science where amateurs make a big contribution is palaeontology.....you just have to get out there and find interesting and unusual fossils. Again, not easy to achieve, as most fossils you find will be very common ones. As one further example, I have worked on soil invertebrates with a professional soil scientist; here again, the requirements to get to "first base" in terms of starting to actually do research are considerable, in that you need to know quite a lot and you need to do a lot of work.
Teamwork seems to be a big factor in scientific success for amateurs (e.g. BOSS), for the simple reason that most of us have to fit our astronomical activities into our overbusy non-astronomical lives. So, teamwork overcomes the limitations of the limited time available to individual amateurs.
Some of the top astro-imagers, e.g R. Jay GaBany and Ken Crawford , have scored co-authorship of scientific papers, as they have been able to image so deep in the outer regions of galaxies that all kinds of unusual things have been found.
Incredible Persistence, and a laser-like mental focus, to the exclusion of most other activities (non-astronomical activities) has also paid off for some amateurs. For example, the late Erwin van der Velden did planetary imaging with a webcam that was used by NASA!! I got the impression that Erwin did nothing else except astronomy, though I could be mistaken in this opinion because I did not know him well. His 'amateur' status was technically true, but I got the impression that he was conversant with planetary science, at the level of a professional astronomer.
For my own part, I have too many other scientific interests (notably: microbiology, soil invertebrates & soil ecology, Australian vegetation communities, finding early Metazoans in the fossil record, etc.) to get a long way in astronomical science , because these activities take away from my limited free time available for astronomy. The most I have been able to score is a few acknowledgments of my assistance, in some Astronomical scientific papers (e.g. I am mentioned at the beginning of the De Vaucouleurs Atlas of Galaxies), and I have also got a few pats on the back from professional astronomers for pointing out interesting and anomalous galaxy morphology (my primary astronomical interest is the classification and morphologies and properties of galaxies)
As an example of my discovering 'anomalous galaxy morphology', I discovered a Voorwerp in Galex FUV data (see the science forum)
The difference between us, and professionals, is that "we don't have to go to work, and we don't have to turn up to the observatory if we don't feel like it". I am sure that all of the advanced amateurs who have made scientific contributions are doing it simply because they love the subject. However, it is
not easy to make a contribution to astronomical science, as it requires both considerable knowledge and great persistence.