He employed many different scopes over the years, observing from dark sky sites near the San Francisco Bay Area, the Sierra Nevada foothills and star party events in California and elsewhere.

[3] As Gottlieb's interests developed, he researched at the nearby UC Berkeley astronomy library, comparing his observations with those of professionals and with the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey.

[1] Gottlieb thus became one of the principal investigators of the NGC/IC Project, a collaboration among professional and amateur astronomers to identify and image objects, compile historical observations and correct mistakes in the NGC and IC catalogues.

[4][5][6] While helping to put the catalogues in order, he also worked with various telescope makers to correct the databases of computerized DSCs (digital setting circles) and GoTo systems.

[1] In the 1980s Gottlieb began writing articles for astronomy magazines about observing galaxy groups, various types of nebulae, supernova remnants and other topics.