Re: Amateur astronomers prove their mettle

"Brian Tung" <brian@xxxxxxx> wrote

John Kulczycki wrote:
That's exactly it! You need more small scopes to do the grunt work. It's
a lot cheaper to do a little bit of "astro-what-if" on a small scope
than a big one. Personally I'd like to see a lot more "astro-what-if"
taking place by a lot more folks out there.

I disagree that that's "exactly it." It's not a matter of grunt work
vs refined, white-collar work. An army of a million small scopes can't
do the work that a single big one can because the work isn't incremental
like that; it can't be divided so that each person does a little bit.
I mean, some of it can, but for the most part, the work that is done on
Big Iron needs the Big Iron.

I agree, Brian. I think that what John is looking for is a network of small
"professional" observatories where the "little," but necessary stuff can be
done for which the big telescopes don't have time. I suspect, too, that the
professionals these days find the small scopes too limiting, at least in
aperture (and now light polluted location), for the types of research most?
of them want to to.

We know that many amateurs have fairly substantial aperture telescopes in
their own dark-sky backyards. That's where all these small-observatory
scopes are/could be, but... I suspect the vast majority of the owners just
want to have fun.

Howard


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