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.

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.

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’.

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

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.

J/P=?

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*

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!).

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.