Howdy all,
The recent two announcements that Mike (Strongman) made here on IIS show just how important and valued the work of the amateur astronomer can still be if one chooses to go down that path.
There are a number of Ice In Space members who have contributed to our knowledge and understanding of Astronomy through discovery and meticulous observation.
Clearly Professional Astronomers are willing and keen to acknowledge this contribution in science papers they may issue and through the reporting of transients and other time dependent observations.
The 2 links below can be searched just by typing in first initial & surname and it will search the database for acknowledgements of such papers etc.
"The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) is a Digital Library portal for researchers in Astronomy and Physics, operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) under a NASA grant. The ADS maintains three bibliographic databases containing more than 13.4 million records covering publications in Astronomy and Astrophysics, Physics, and the arXiv e-prints. Abstracts and full-text of major astronomy and physics publications are indexed and searchable through the new ADS "Bumblebee" interface as well as the traditional "Classic" search forms. A set of browsable interfaces are also available."
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/
A search of "Sidonio" comes back with the following screen shot.
Amateur Astronomy is wonderful from all aspects and you can actively contribute to the science if you so wish. If you do then the professional community will acknowledge your efforts that make it all well worth the effort (and expense) you went to.
I recon there will be a few on IIS with much longer lists than mine, including you!...I'll get one more soon though 
Thanks for your enthusiasm around all this, all fun stuff huh?
