Amateur astronomy
Amateur astronomy is a hobby where participants enjoy observing or imaging celestial objects in the sky using the unaided eye, binoculars, or telescopes.
[7] Amateur astronomers do not use the field of astronomy as their primary source of income or support, and usually have no professional degree in astrophysics or advanced academic training in the subject.
Most amateurs are hobbyists, while others have a high degree of experience in astronomy and may often assist and work alongside professional astronomers.
Amateur astronomers use a range of instruments to study the sky, depending on a combination of their interests and resources.
Methods include simply looking at the night sky with the naked eye, using binoculars, and using a variety of optical telescopes of varying power and quality, as well as additional sophisticated equipment, such as cameras, to study light from the sky in both the visual and non-visual parts of the spectrum.
To further improve studying the visual and non-visual part of the spectrum, amateur astronomers go to rural areas[13] to get away from light pollution.
Binoculars, for instance, although generally of lower power than the majority of telescopes, also tend to provide a wider field of view, which is preferable for looking at some objects in the night sky.
A great deal of the commerce of amateur astronomy, the buying and selling of equipment, occurs online.
While a number of interesting celestial objects are readily identified by the naked eye, sometimes with the aid of a star chart, many others are so faint or inconspicuous that technical means are necessary to locate them.
Star hopping is a method often used by amateur astronomers with low-tech equipment such as binoculars or a manually driven telescope.
[15][16] These apps allow any user to easily locate celestial objects of interest by simply pointing the smartphone device in that direction in the sky.
As with go-to telescopes, digital setting circle computers (commercial names include Argo Navis, Sky Commander, and NGC Max) contain databases of tens of thousands of celestial objects and projections of planet positions.
Computerized sources, on the other hand, are able to calculate the right ascension and declination of the "epoch of date" to the exact instant of observation.
For example, GOTO telescopes tend to be faster for locating items of interest than star hopping, allowing more time for studying of the object.
[22] Amateur astronomers engage in many imaging techniques including film, DSLR, LRGB, and CCD astrophotography.
A relatively recent role for amateur astronomers is searching for overlooked phenomena (e.g., Kreutz Sungrazers) in the vast libraries of digital images and other data captured by Earth and space based observatories, much of which is available over the Internet.
Members range from active observers with their own equipment to "armchair astronomers" who are simply interested in the topic.
Societies range widely in their goals and activities, which may depend on a variety of factors such as geographic spread, local circumstances, size, and membership.
For example, a small local society located in dark countryside may focus on practical observing and star parties, whereas a large one based in a major city might have numerous members but be limited by light pollution and thus hold regular indoor meetings with guest speakers instead.
Major national or international societies generally publish their own academic journal or newsletter, and some hold large multi-day meetings akin to a scientific conference or convention.
