The word "amateur" is highly contentious among astronomers. Technically it means someone who is not paid for the work they do, but it has connotations of meaning "not well done" and "poorly thought-out".
When it comes to astronomy, that’s just plain silly. Amateurs may not get paid to do astronomy, but in many cases they are every bit the equal of professional astronomers. And sometimes they eke out a lead, too.
Such is the case of Arto Oksanen, a Finnish amateur. On October 10 of 2007, using a 40 centimeter (14") telescope, he found the optical afterglow for a gamma-ray burst, a titanically powerful explosion created when a massive star explodes and forms a black hole. GRBs produce light across the electromagnetic spectrum, but they fade to invisibility incredibly quickly, usually within minutes or even seconds. This makes observing the afterglow very tricky.
Recent advances have made it easier: telescopes in space (like Swift) detect the GRBs and send down the coordinates of the burst within literally seconds of the discovery. If you have an automated telescope, and subscribe to the email alerts, you can chase down the afterglows. But you have to be fast!
Oksanen was fast. He found the fading optical blast from GRB 071010B, the second GRB detected on October 10, 2007 (hence the GRB designation) just 17 minutes after the burst began, when it was at an optical magnitude of 17.5 (about 1/40,000th as bright as the faintest star you can see with the unaided eye). This quick work beat out the professional astronomy community, and provided critical observations of the early time activity of the burst, which provides key insight into the physics of the explosion.
Follow-up observation of the burst by the massive Gemini and Keck telescopes indicated it was at a distance of 7 billion light years away. That’s a pretty fair distance to be seen by a 14" ’scope. While I’m sure Oksanen’s setup is pretty sophisticated, in fact that kind of telescope is not too expensive as things go. And hey, isn’t gift-giving season coming up…?
October 14th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
[...] Original post by The Bad Astronomer [...]
October 14th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
Why not just call him an astronomer, omitting “amateur” altogether?
It seems to me that the difference between amateur and professional astronomer is highly irrelevant. A more useful distinction would be between affiliated and unaffiliated. It’s more interesting and pertinent to know where the astronomer is from than whether they get paid or not.
October 14th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
Yeah,
I know a fellow who used to be a member of my local astronomy club. He’s now an instrument maker and engineer for professional astronomers, among other clients. He, however, has a private automated observatory, where he searches the sky almost every evening for asteroids, both known and unknown. It helps that he lives in Tucson, where the weather allows this. In the pursuit of these objects, he has made other serendipitous discoveries that add to the knowledge of the skies under which we live. As I mentioned he’s an engineer and not a ‘professional’ astronomer
He came back to the city where I live back in August and gave a talk to the astronomy club about his accomplishments and how we could do significant observations with the type of equipment he’s built. The only problem we would have where I live is the number of cloudless skies are much fewer than in Tucson (drat it!).
October 14th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
I think the distinction between amateur and professional astronomer is irrelevant, as well. Half the stuff I read about new discoveries begins with, “Amateur astronomer so-and-so … “. At least, I would axe the amateur part because it really does imply the meaning of not really knowing what-in-the-hell they’re doing. And they do. A lot of these amateur astronomers have their own observatories and telescopes and sophisticated computer software for raiding the skies. Amateur should definitely be changed to something else.. but I can’t think of anything right now. Perhaps go with the above comment “Why not just call him astronomer?” and have the professional astronomers be referred to as such–professional, as it is their career.
Meh, my two cents.
I’m definitely planning on having my own observatory someday, complete with a roof which I can open and close at the push of a button. *drools*
October 14th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
The thing to remember is that the term ‘amateur’ comes from the Latin, AMAS – to love. That is, the ‘amateur’ does it from their personal interest, without being paid, thus separating it from Professional (taking pay for the same or similar work).
The demeaning of the term came, I would guess, from a certain number of ‘professionals’ (note that it implies now a level of expertise, as well as being paid) who weren’t overly happy that ‘amateurs’ were sometimes doing the work as well as the ‘pros’.
That’s why I prefer to refer to a Professional who does their job well as an ‘expert’, also implying greater knowledge than the (average) amateur who may have, for instance, trained themselves in a subject, though they may actually not be as ‘good’ as an amateur… but for me a Good Amateur is as much an Expert as a lukewarm Professional.
J/P=?
October 14th, 2007 at 11:50 pm
Wow, and I thought I was pretty hot stuff for finding Andromeda with my binocs from my backyard last night. Stories like this make me want to max out my credit cards on scopes and gear and move out to the high desert.
October 15th, 2007 at 1:15 am
Perhaps the distinction between amateur and professional should be unfunded as opposed to under-funded?
October 15th, 2007 at 3:42 am
HAMS, or amateur radio operators, share your concerns. We are also unpaid radio enthusiasts that provide vital services during times of emergencies.
October 15th, 2007 at 5:37 am
I guess Galileo was an amateur then, not a “real” astronomer.
October 15th, 2007 at 7:29 am
On a totally irrelevant note, I notice this site has a “Valid XHTML” link in the sidebar. Unfortunately, the site fails the validation test. You probably shouldn’t have that link there.
October 15th, 2007 at 7:49 am
My daughter was involved in setting up PROMPT in Chile. It’s designed to chase afterglows from GRBs by responding rapidly and automatically to detections from SWIFT. I think it deserves a mention here.
Here are some photos, including one of my daughter Jane standing in the pit where one of the six PROMPT telescopes is to be built. The are lots of photos of the completed array.
October 15th, 2007 at 10:15 am
I’ve told kids that the term “Amateur Astronomer” refers to anybody who looks at the sky at night with a telescope or binoculars. It gives them the perception that even though they haven’t done it very long, there’s still a chance to discover something significant. And just because you don’t get paid to do it, that doesn’t mean what you do is any less important. The title Astronomer itself gives them a sense of pride.
October 15th, 2007 at 10:41 am
John Paradox beat me to it. I am an Amateur Radio Operator (N4FFD), a VERY Amateur Astronomer, an amateur cabinet maker and probably a whole bunch of other things.
I frankly don’t care one photon for what the general unwashed public – the very same unwashed public that believes in pareidollia and angels, THINKS the word means.
We do it because we love to do it. That is what the word means. Not unpaid or whatever – that’s just a distinction. A professional may ALSO be an amateur – just one lucky enough to be paid for what she loves to do.
I believe that historically, the “professional” was doing work because it was his to do – not because they truly liked – or loved – doing it. This is also probably a gross overstatement and I can think of perhaps a dozen contradictions myself. As I have said many times, words have no intrinsic meaning – but they DO have a history. It is perceived that those who did things solely because they loved to do them were – most likely misperceived – NOT Professionals.
Language is sometimes such a sad thing.
JC
October 15th, 2007 at 11:16 am
[...] ver weg staat. Toch niet gek voor een amateur met z’n 40 cm telescoop. Wie doet het na? Bron: Bad Astronomy Blog. Noot:de tweede GRB die dag, vandaar die B in de naam. [terug]Deel deze [...]
October 15th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
[...] Amateur? no Bad Astronomy [...]
October 15th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
I wonder if the lower opinion of “amateur” isn’t derived from sports. There’s a very obvious differential between professional baseball players (for instance) and the guys who play on sunday. The same is true of boxing, football, basketball, … the list goes on.
Maybe rather than “amateur” they should use ‘journeyman and instead of ‘professional’ they should use “master” (or some variation thereof). Of course, using that set of criteria, I’m not going to qualify even as ‘apprentice’.
October 15th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
In meteorology, volunteers who make daily max/min temperature and precipitation measurements are called ‘cooperative observers’, and perform an important role in filling gaps in the weather/climate data network.
Perhaps ‘amateur astronomers’ could be referred to as ‘cooperative astronomers’ or even ‘cooperative observers’ as well, since their role is nearly the same as in meteorology.
October 15th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
Why are intervening galaxies 4 times more prevalent along lines of sight to GRB’s than to quasars ?
October 15th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
[...] The Bad Astronomer explains how valuable contributions to astronomy come from amateurs. [...]
October 15th, 2007 at 6:49 pm
@Lurchgs, “apprentice” and “journeyman” wouldn’t be appropriate, as they’re stages in “professional” development, dating back to the Guilds of olde. Apprentice being the student learning the trade, journeyman having enough knowledge to work at it. Master would be the expert, supervisor, innovator.
I see the amateur/professional tension in the theater. A company I work with self-defines as being “amateur, but with professional standards”. We do it for love, for experience, but not for money. I think a lot of amateur astronomers could be described the same way.
October 15th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Is it just me or did the Swedish chef just leave a comment? Maybe it was the Swedish astronomer? (Ok actually it is perfectly good Dutch)
October 16th, 2007 at 12:04 am
The term “amateur astronomer” has had a long and honourable history. I don’t see any reason to change it now.
October 16th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
I dont mind beeing caled an amateur astronomer for several resons 1 its not my profesion astronomy is more of a hobby with me so therfore I am not in Dr Platts leage . 2 I have no collage degree in astronomy most of what I know comes from books and magizenes about the subject (althro i did take a slef teachering course from a catalog and I took wikiuniversitys on line course in april) 3 I am not quilified to form theroys or hypothesis about the universe and I dont try to (in fact its lucky I dont with my addiction to sci fi and video games my theroyes would sound stupid and I have the scientific comunity burning me in effige) so I feal that when it comes to astronomy I am strictly an amateur
October 16th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
Food for thought: astronomy is one the last sciences where amateur can keep up with professionals (with enough money and in certain areas, but still …). The book to read is Seeking in the Dark by Timothy Ferris
October 18th, 2007 at 6:10 am
[...] data on the early history of the burst. Centauri Dreams discusses the discovery, as does the Bad Astronomer in more [...]