Lack of observers.

I know it will go well, once the time is given to it, it is only a matter of time....

Keith..

Hi,

This is back on original thread:

Many people casually look at the sky, but do not record (even in a modest way) what they see. How many keep an Astronomical Notebook?

An aside: I started observing the sky as a teenager in 1974 with just binoculars. It was so enjoyable and so much to learn that I did not get a scope until 1980 (a 15cm Reflector on a German Equatorial - Dynascope 6). I am annoyed with myself that I did not record what I saw until 1982. Now (many telescopes later) I have a quarter century of observations recorded in my notebooks.

(Aside over). The point that as Director of Obs I receive observations only from a handful of people. Is it that people are shy about reporting their observations.

It would be interesting to know:
1. How many Observers make records what they see.
2. Of these how many send their observations to their own Society.
3. How many of these send these to a scientific organisation (e.g. MPC,
AAVSO)

John

Hi John,

This is a problem all round John regarding visual observatons.
I stayed with Guy Hurst last month who as you know has played a significant role in British amateur astronomy and I asked him the same questions. For example, in the Comet Section of the BAA there has been a steady decline in contributions in visual cometary work. There are only a regular handful now as compared to about 50 observers twenty years ago As regards variable stars its the same problem which is nearly becoming extinct for visual observations.

No matter what workshops are organised by the BAA in these fields in order to encourage amateurs to contribute the attendence has definitely been in decline. I had an evening just recently with Richard Miles , President of BAA; we talked about the same problem. Even with the introduction of technology to carry out say photometric observations with CCD cameras in variable stars and minor planets their are very few contributors. In addition there is also a huge concern in amateur astronomy in the UK where the number of young people (a minority membership) don't contribute to any of the BAA Sections. This is recognised in most European countries the decline in science students is at a crisis.

I regularly record observations of a sky survey for EKBOs and send monthly reports of the observations to the Planetary & Space Science Research Institute (UK). Because of the hardware here and unlimited telescope time, I have recorded observations that the professionals haven't surveyed at all yet.

I also do the odd asteroidal astrometric observation and send that in to the MPC. I also carry out asteroidal occultations and send them into EOAN.

I recently have taken an interest in Exoplanets and send my first monitoring of a transit to Transit.org (ULLICK) this last May. These results are published. I do send some of these reports to IAA Stardust, The Astronomer Magazine that would be of interest to a wider audience.

Eamonn A

One of the reasons may be the number of automated sky patrols that exist now. We live in an era of automated patrols of the sky from near-perfect locations on earth, and indeed space, with very large telescopes processing gigabytes of data per night.
As an amateur, it can be difficult at times to see the scientific merits of trying to take scientific recordings of astronomical phenomenae whereby the number of measurements an amateur can make in one night is merely a drop in the ocean in comparison to what the professional surveys can do (or so it can appear anyway).
What would be interesting to know are the strengths and weaknesses of these sky patrols.
What areas of the sky are they missing?
What are their limitations?

John, the AOP SN search will regularly be producing images of somewhere in the region of 500 - 1000 galaxies.

Whilst probably not of photometric quality, I would imagine those images could be analysed and light curves produced for adjacent stars, at least to an accuracy of 0.2 mag or thereabouts.

Would I be right in assuming that those images could be mined for that data? I recognise that since they may be taken weeks apart that they would only be good for longer period variables, but useful info nevertheless.

Also, I would sincerely hope (and will be promoting) that after the SN search gets off the ground and is bedded in, the next program (for the imagers at last) would be variable stars.

If all goes to plan, then I think you can look forward to the VSOG in Ireland seeing an increase in observations over the coming years.

Cheers
Dave

.
What would be interesting to know are the strengths and weaknesses of these sky patrols.
What areas of the sky are they missing?
What are their limitations?

Michael, I don't know much about the existing surveys, even less about future surveys (e.g. PanStarrs). But what I read on the various boards, they do have some limitations. It might be the areas of sky they are covering, the types of image they take (they may be in certain wavelengths only) or even the resources they have. Even though they might have terabytes of data produced plus tons of processing power to manipulate that data, it seems to me that they still need astronomers to do the follow-up work.

Whilst the apparent contribution of amateurs seems to have dwindled with the introduction of these surveys, my sense is that amateurs just need to change the way they contribute.

For example, surveys concentrating on the discovery of minor planets simply do that. They are not designed to do follow up work (like lightcurves). But the data they produce certainly gives the amateurs a very rich vein of new objects to tap into. So, whilst amateurs have been pushed out of the discovery part of minor planet work, they now have a significant increase in the number of objects they can now study.

This might be the case with other types of survey too. But those strengths that amateurs have over professionals still stand. Unlimited scope access time, quick response to events and probably an element of a lack of beaurocracy...

Amateurs have the ability to contribute more than before. Don't be put off by the apparent deluge of data from the professionals. See it as an opening to more facilitate more contributions from amateurs.

Dave