MicroFUN

[2] Organizations like μFUN provide a forum and a listserv for instant notification to amateur and professional astronomers all over the globe, so that microlensing events can be mined for all the information that can be gathered.

Thus, amateur astronomers have a useful role in significant discoveries, as well as a clear and democratic path to authorship on any peer-reviewed scientific publications that result.

[3] Gravitational lensing is an effect of Albert Einstein's general relativity, which says that all matter bends light that passes by it.

Amateur astronomers have no access restriction to their equipment and can "follow up" on microlensing events that have been detected, therefore contributing to the discovery of several extrasolar planets.

Microlensing events with medium aperture telescopes are discovered primarily through observatories and typically require a heftier computer system and observation team.