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I've been using our university's observatory to take images of V404 Cyg for the past week. On Jun 23/24, the star underwent a particularly crazy series of variations: over a period of six hours, it fell to just 5 percent of its initial brightness, then recovered almost to its starting point.

I made an animated GIF showing the star's changes over this period. You can see it on my observing log for the the night:

http://spiff.rit.edu/richmond/...

That page also includes my full dataset, and pointers to additional reading.

The star is currently bright enough -- mag 11-14 -- to be studied easily with small telescopes. Anyone interested in joining the effort should start with the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) -- go to their campaign page at

http://www.aavso.org/aavso-ale...

I've been using our university's observatory to take images of V404 Cyg for the past week. On Jun 23/24, the star underwent a particularly crazy series of variations: over a period of six hours, it fell to just 5 percent of its initial brightness, then recovered almost to its starting point.

I made an animated GIF showing the star's changes over this period. You can see it on my observing log for the the night:

http://spiff.rit.edu/richmond/...

That page also includes my full dataset, and pointers to additional reading.

The star is currently bright enough -- mag 11-14 -- to be studied easily with small telescopes. Anyone interested in joining the effort should start with the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) -- go to their campaign page at

http://www.aavso.org/aavso-ale...

The American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) is a non-profit worldwide scientific and educational organization of amateur and professional astronomers who are interested in stars that change in brightness—variable stars. See http://www.aavso.org/visionmis.... It is not true that today only pro are doing useful work in astronomy. Variable stars are multiple and need long observations: I know people doing as a nice hobby and ... publishing: see http://www.dppobservatory.net/

I am an astronomy professor at a large state university. There are many way in which you can contribute to astronomy as an amateur, while at the same time learn about astronomy. Some have been mentioned in previous answers in this thread:

http://www.planethunters.org/ it is a citizen scientists project that uses actual data from NASA's Kepler Space Telescope to find extrasolar planets that may have been missed by the automatic software used by the professional astronomers. It harvests the "wisdom of the crowd" and the natural pattern recognition in the human brain to find the telltale signature of extrasolar planets that the automated software may have missed. Some planets have already been found this way, and the citizens that found them have been included in the scientific publication: http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.3612

There are other 9 projects using the same infrastructure that use astronomical data to do real research: https://www.zooniverse.org/pro... . Topics go from stars, planet and galaxy formation, solar physics, black holes, asteroids, etc... All these projects use actual data from ground and space based telescopes, and have ample tutorials that explain how the project work and the science behind it in an accessible way. We use this projects in our school to introduce freshmen undergraduates to research as soon as they arrive to our university.

If you own an amateur telescope you can also contribute to the American Association of Variable Stars Observers (AAVSO: http://www.aavso.org/) which despite its name is open to amateur observers all over the world. The association collects data from amateurs to create lightcurves of variable stars. This is an exceptionally important work, because monitoring of bright stars is often overlook by the professional community; yet knowing long term trends in their luminosity is essential to understand stellar evolution, stellar physics and the cosmological distance scale. The AAVSO is organized as a scientific society, and as such has a journal where results are published, scientific meetings, etc. It also has a lot of background material written in a way to be accessible for the public.

That said, I read in the comment thread above that somebody got discouraged in pursuing an academic career in astronomy because "there are no jobs". This is not true. The field is not worse than any other academic field. Surely we are suffering from cuts in science expenditures an education, like anybody else (hint: think about that when you vote next November), but universities, observatories and agencies like NASA are still hiring. New people can still make it in the field, and even if they don't find a job as astrophysicists there are many careers in the private sector where the skills learned while pursuing a Ph.D. in astronomy are welcomed. One collaborator of mine, for example, just got hired to work at a cool startup company in the D.C. area. A student of mine went to work at Lincoln Lab in Boston on remote sensing. Other ex students in our department that decided to leave research went to work in medical imaging (at Mayo clinic), or even making battle plans for F14s on a aircraft carrier (his claim of fame is that he prevented the Navy from declaring war on Venus). Our university, as well universities all over the world, still accept scores of new student in astronomy programs: not everybody remains in astronomy after their degree, but as far as I know the unemployment rate for professionals with an astronomy Ph.D. is close to zero.

One thing about astronomy is that is a very inclusive community: differently than physics, we have an almost equal gender ratio among the young generations. Age also is not a problem, one of the graduate students we admitted this year is a retiree that decided to complete his studies after working for decades in the oil industry. He is having the time of his life.

Join the http://www.aavso.org/ and do some amateur work for them. Observing targets continuously is really important. The work is necessary - big money telescopes just don't have the time to do this sort of stuff.

Alternatively go the Mechanical Turk route and look at citizen science, finding things like exoplanets or interesting things in heaps of data. There's the possibility for publication there, but it's slim.

Realistically you're not going to be able to do anything worth publishing with 10 hours a week and rusty knowledge. You would be much better off learning about astronomy and trying to make the tools for data analysis far more user friendly than they are already. One of the best pieces of free software around is called Iris. It's a pain in the ass to use, but it works.

I was an astronomer until I left the field last year after I graduated with my PhD. First, I definitely think it's great you want to contribute to research. My personal suggestion is to find a local astronomy club and see what they're doing. Find some books, news articles, etc... to read. That will hopefully give you a decent introduction. If you live near a university with a decent astrophysics program, you can also see if they have any public lectures or, if you want something more intense, attend seminars (though they're typically during the day). They're typically open to the public, but you should probably e-mail first just to double check. There are also things like Galaxy Zoo and similar projects that let you get involved without any commitment.

If you want to get more serious, you should think about what you want to do. Do you want to do any research? Participate in volunteer activities? Just go observing? For the latter, local astronomy clubs (or star parties) would be a good first start. Some of the big observatories also have programs for amateur observing. Mauna Kea is absolutely amazing for this - every night at the visitor center they bring out some decent sized telescopes (decent sized for seeing with your eyes) and there's usually a bunch of volunteers to help understand what they're pointing them at. Oftentimes dedicated amateurs will come up as well with even bigger telescopes and are happy to share. You also sometimes get professional astronomers who hang out there (like I did a few nights) though the amateurs are usually better at describing what you're seeing (professional astronomy is all about physics - not pretty images).

If you live near a big observatory (mostly southwest US, California, or Hawaii) you can also try to volunteer to be a docent there or something similar. Many of the observatories have some program for volunteers to help lead tours, attend public talks by researchers, and similar. The more dedicated volunteers get some perks, like joining for observing runs, seeing some of the behind-the-scenes things at the telescopes, and similar.

On the research side, it's a lot harder and a lot more investment (time, money, or both). To be able to do semi-independent research in astronomy you'd need to basically do a PhD. That's 40-50 hours a week (at least) for 5-7 years. It's hard. You can do more limited things though. For example, the AAVSO (American Association of Variable Star Observers) is a great organization that organizes observing of variable stars and provides some support to write up the results. Amateur data has been used in many papers. But, this requires having your own telescope that can take scientific quality images. You can also work on data analysis, but this will definitely require some time to understand how to do it. I'd also point out that most people underestimate how hard it is to write a scientific paper. Especially your first one.

As for going into it professionally, I agree with others who have said there are few jobs in the field. Especially if you have a family, it would be very hard to start from scratch.

Single star long period semi-random "chaotic" variable? Perfectly gravitationally stable.

Check out my pals at the AAVSO American association of variable star observers (not a rickroll, I promise)
http://www.aavso.org/

It would be hilarious if your author used a real light curve for his books and it was all an inside joke (perhaps the stars name is somehow related to a characters name, or the authors name, or the authors mom's name, etc)

I don't know how long it lasts, but its daily intensity is being plotted here. From what little I've read, it can be expected to increase like this for ~14 days from the initial explosion

AAVSO?

http://www.aavso.org/

American association of variable star observers?

Kids could observe, but its probably a heck of a lot easier to use the lightcurve generator. Don't tell them about the different kinds of variable stars, let them discover it for themselves.

I am an astrophysicist/astronomer, and I can vouch for that as a field in which amateurs still play a major role. Hell, my first paper on which I was the first author was something that anyone with a decent set of programming skills and a mild knowledge of astronomy could do - the trick was knowing that it needed to be done. As far as how to get involved, I have several suggestions.

1. Go back to school, formally or informally. If you have a university with an astronomy or physics department, get involved there, perhaps by taking a class or two part time. This serves a threefold purpose. The most obvious is that it is a great opportunity to learn the basics. Second, it will give you access to university resources, such as library (including journals and databases online!) access, computer access, and sometimes telescope access. Finally, it will give you access to professionals. Many professors and researchers are in need of people to do their side project. These often get done by undergrads, and if you go back to school you can get involved. All you do is ask around the department if anyone needs free help, and then find someone you want to work with. You might get a coauthorship out of it. This is how I did my first paper as an undergrad.

2. Look online for topics that amateurs with a telescope can help with. Try variable stars, asteroids, comets, supernovae, gamma ray bursts, etc. Alternatively, if you are into programming, CS, or data methods and their applications to astronomy, this is a great area to make contributions with little-to-no startup cost. Rapid time series analysis and signal processing are big these days, among many other things.

3. Don't be ignorant. Read introductory textbooks. Refresh yourself on math, physics, and programming. Read wikipedia. Read arxiv astro-ph and use ADS.


There are other non-astro things I can think of too. I'm into paleontology as a hobby - its another field that amateurs routinely make contributions in, but that's decreasing with time. Fossil collecting can be really fun while also getting you outdoors. Unfortunately, this is highly dependent on your location, local laws, and other factors out of your control. Same with amateur archaeology - but this is even harder to do. In some parts of the US, for example, amateurs have found major native american archaeological sites, which they then call in professionals to help with. Another way to get involved in these fields is to volunteer at a natural history museum or a university, similar to how I described for astronomy, but it is usually easier because they need people to help on digs and things. There is less potential for a publication, though. Computer Science, mathematics, and software engineering also seem like fields an amateur could make contributions in.

Since it's astronomers that build and operate the observatories, and we've discovered, among other things, exoplanets from long term monitoring programs at said observatories... your statement makes little sense.

Given the low cost of high end amateur grade scope, if useful science could truly be done on it, where are the ongoing proposals from the astronomers that such things be be built/obtained?

-

GP is correct. The long term monitoring for exoplanets was done at professional observatories, but using what are now considered "small" telescopes, equivalent to large-ish amateur telescopes . But there is only so much money and so much professional manpower for these. Amateurs with a good location, telescope and camera and some care can indeed contribute to real, published research, monitoring comets, asteroids, variable stars of all types, exoplanets and stars which might have exoplanets, or looking for supernovae. It's a very good field for amateurs.

here are some (non-exhaustive) examples and discussion:
http://www.aavso.org/aavso/about/pro_am.pdf

(disclaimer: I am a professional astronomer)

After about a year Hubble data is available online. So is data from a bunch of world class instruments. Learning to reduce and data mine that data will allow you to potentially contribute. You have to be good enough to pick up on something that the experts have missed or haven't had time to analyse. Even the basic reduction isn't an easy thing to learn, especially on your own and unsupported by an institution.

If you want to collect original data you can always get into variable star observing. Chances are you will not make a discovery (though again you can go data mining) but if you collect data points they may be used to make a discovery. I don't know how long this will be relevant until nightly whole sky surveys take over but for now it's a good way to get involved. Start here http://www.aavso.org/

I agree with others who've stated that if your motivation is to get famous you're probably barking up the wrong tree. You may get lucky but your chances of winning lotto are better. That doesn't mean you can't contribute.

Astronomy indeed.

Firstly, amateur observation is an awesome hobby. But beyond that, there are areas where professional astronomical research depends on amateur observations. For example, research about variable stars requires numerous observations over time. You can read about this at the American Association of Variable Star Observers website. You may also want to see if there is an amateur observing group near you (there probably is). This is a great contact to establish since they will have considered many of the questions you're going to encounter, and since it's always fun to talk to others who share your interests.

A few more words about astro research since my undergrad degree was in astronomy. A good telescope does a lot to expand the targets you can observe and a good CCD and filter set does wonders for the data you can take...but you can do interesting things ranging from naked eye on up. There is also a lot of publicly-available astronomy data which you could do analysis on, either because the observer chose to publish it or because it came from public sources. More than anyone will ever have time to exhaust. Learn how to work with it and keep good records of your reduction and analysis process. IRAF is one of the main tools here - and it's FOSS, as are a number of other useful tools. For understanding existing data files or for taking your own observations, Steve Howell's "Handbook of CCD Astronomy" is a good read. It helps if you can program at some level, although you can always pick that up.

More broadly, what's the difference between hacking together something interesting and doing scientific research? Mainly, it has to do with what you do afterwords in order to test your results, the rigor with which you approach the capture and analysis of data, and how you go about framing and presenting what you did when sharing it with others. Depending on what you want to do, maybe that requires a bit of extra equipment, and certainly it involves a lot of extra time, thought, and probably training. But the added expense is not always prohibitive, or even usually. Not every research project has to be run on a high-energy supercollider or on a top-tier computing cluster. Academic research projects have to worry about facilities costs, stipends for graduate students, et cetera...you as a hobbyist do not. You can also often gain access to articles in academic and professional journals by visiting your local college campuses - their libraries will usually make these available to anyone who cares to come in and use them. This will be no end of helpful when trying to understand what has already been done and how.

What you will be missing as an amateur is the support network surrounding an academic or industrial researcher, and the experience which you can get by working for and with more experienced researchers. This is the main thing which will limit the contributions you can make, not your access to facilities and equipment. But what is your real goal here? Do you want to explore and have fun, and maybe share some results in a way which inspires your fellow researchers? Is getting credit through publication in a formal journal even important to you since that's not your career? Do cool things, take risks, explore! It's 2010 and a new frontier thanks to the internet - you can publish to a blog or on Youtube. Interesting results will get picked up on sites like Slashdot or Hack a Day, people will see them, "real" researchers will see them. If you do interesting work and present it in "scientific" way, it can be a real contribution to humanity. And it will be fun!

... lab, to astronomy, etc....

You totally picked the wrong optical hobby dude. Unless you live in some sort of paradise, its either going to be too cold, too hot, too rainy, too buggy, too cloudy, too windy for lightweight mounts, or bad temp inversions, about 99% of the time. Now, a microscope, on the other hand, maybe with a cam attachment hooked up to a PC, with some image analysis software, that could be big fun under any weather condition. And they both cost about the same, less than a car payment for junk, about a single monthly mortgage payment for the good stuff, and about one decent used car for used pro-grade hardware.

Also, we all look at the same sky. That means intense competition. But we all have different dirt and ponds. Yet another vote for microscope.

I'm not convinced they are areas that would lend themselves to making new discoveries in the home and with home equipment, which is what I'd really like to do.

Yeah well you're about to learn the hard part is not deciding what to buy, or even whipping out a credit card, the hard part is figuring out how you'll determine its something new. Pretty easy if you want to discover something new to you, look, an algae species I've never photographed before. Pretty hard if you want to darn near prove a negative, prove no human being has ever photographed that particular species of algae before.

Something New is not necessarily discovering a new individual thing. Something New might be using yer computer and some homemade software that emulates a red blood cell counter to chart the population of algae per sample vs ... something, to make interesting predictions, or discover a new effect. Or turning your computer-microscope into the worlds weirdest spectrophotometer, to measure ... something.

What R&D hobbies do Slashdotters have that provide them with opportunities to make interesting discoveries and potentially chart new territory in the home? Do such hobbies exist?

On the other hand, one good thing about the astronomy hobby is the AAVSO, American Association of Variable Star Observers. You'd never guess that their URL happens to be:

http://www.aavso.org/

The AAVSO ( http://www.aavso.org/ ) should have plenty of real science they could do with a 4" telescope.

I know its not a one night job, but maybe some visual observations of variables for extra credit thru the entire year?

Yeah it is a bit late to start now:

You'll be spending alot of time at the AAVSO website, may as well start here:

http://www.aavso.org/publications/manual/

Basically, you learn two skills, star hopping from beta cep to tau cep, and then you compare the brightness of tau cep with its neighbors which have fixed, known magnitudes to estimate tau cep magnitude today.

http://www.aavso.org/images/starhopping.gif

It has the virtue of being free, if nothing else.

I know its not a one night job, but maybe some visual observations of variables for extra credit thru the entire year?

Yeah it is a bit late to start now:

You'll be spending alot of time at the AAVSO website, may as well start here:

http://www.aavso.org/publications/manual/

Basically, you learn two skills, star hopping from beta cep to tau cep, and then you compare the brightness of tau cep with its neighbors which have fixed, known magnitudes to estimate tau cep magnitude today.

http://www.aavso.org/images/starhopping.gif

It has the virtue of being free, if nothing else.

First thing I would do is to subscribe to Sky and Telescope and start reading it cover to cover.

Second, you need to ask yourself, do you want to do Science, or have fun, or something more like Art ? If you want to do science, you should look into

- asteroid occultations (these always need more data) or
- variable star observing (look into the AAVSO or
- searching for or confirming new comets

Astronomy as a science requires patience and is generally unglamorous.

If you want to do Art (i.e., pretty astronomical pictures) you may want to get a an equatorial mount. With your budget, you will likely find a Dobsonian telescope mount a better choice if you just want to look at objects with your eyes. In any case spend more time and effort selecting your mount than your telescope. This is the biggest mistake most beginners make.

Astronomical telescopes must be very steady, which means a sturdy mount, ideally mounted directly into the ground. Most department store telescopes are OK, but their mounts are hopeless. If your mount wobbles, because it is cheaply made, vibrates in the wind, etc., your telescope is not likely to see much use.

See U.S. patent #5,699,124 for some details of how the data is encoded.

Some of the same data is encoded in the audio. Here's some info about decoding it.

So far, the PVR community doesn't seem to have figured this stuff out, and the specs aren't easy to get, but the data is out there.

Here's a reference on extracting SID data from audio.

Who would've thought we could start to resolve the diameters of other stars within our lifetimes??

Considering that Albert Michelson (yes, that Michelson) made the first measurement of another star (not the Sun) in 1920 (about a third or the way down the page for that detail), the question is probably more like how old are you? My parents weren't born yet when that happened.

This Gamma Ray Burst news got to amateur astronomers within hours of its detection on 29th of March. It was also the first GRB to be observed visually as can be seen from AAVSO's report. The observers were deep-sky enthuasts from Finland.The equipment used was amateur level telescopes and eyeballs.

This Gamma Ray Burst news got to amateur astronomers within hours of its detection on 29th of March. It was also the first GRB to be observed visually as can be seen from AAVSO's report. The observers were deep-sky enthuasts from Finland.The equipment used was amateur level telescopes and eyeballs.

Most of the experienced skywatchers in the world are amateurs. Professional astronomy hardly ever involves directly looking at the sky. The amateurs are the people who go out on their own initiative and look at the sky, get to know small regions containing thousands of stars (or more), and can often immediately spot any change and report it. Back yard astronomers frequently provide historical observation data that professionals refer to later on when it's relevant to whatever they're studying.

Supernova 1987A was first discovered by several such people who've spent most of their lives learning where the stars should be, and could immediately tell that something was different.

Works even better if you run Linux and can get IRAS running and have a good display, especially if you want to fool around with the Hubble archives. Professional astronomers have been doing their research on unixes for 20 plus years. Tools are available for the asking and most professionals and grad students are willing to help out an amateur who is serious. Linux brings, to an amateur, the same desktop power, but at a very low cost.

Astronomy is one of the few hard sciences where an amateur can contribute serious work, either with nothing more than a telescope and a webcam to digging into the very numerous digital archives that are available for free.

And to add to that, there is a long, long, tradition of amateurs and professional astronomers working together. For a great example see theAmerican Assoc. of Variable Star Observers.

Kinda reminds me of my first astronomy class. I hadn't even made it to my freshman year of high school and I had 4 credits of Astronomy from the local community college.

Many people have given good advice above. I'll mainly just second their comments. The order I'd proceed in is.

First item, a good beginners star atlas.

Second item, warm clothing.

Third item, many nights in the country just learning the stars and constelations.

After that go and get a good pair of binoculars or a good telescope.

Last, but not least. As your doughter is so young, you will need to be there as a source of infromation. You'll need to learn alot to help guide her in the early years.

Now for some Links. The first two have good beginners information. Some of the links below may be dead. I just quick cut and pasted them from the astronomy section of my Interesting Places page.

• Astronomy Mag. (www.astronomy.com/home.asp).
• Sky & Telescope Mag. (www.skypub.com).
• Minnesota Astronomical Society (MAS) (www.mnastro.org).
• The Telescope Shoppe (www.telescopeshop.com), 3402 Federal Dr., Eagan, MN, 651-688-7335. Yes this is a local Twin Cities telescope shop. They have a map on their site showing where they are. They are tucked in the lower level along the side of the strip mall they are in. The store is small and easy to miss. If your at the corner of Yankee Doodle RD and Federal Dr., park in the lot to the south east. They are a short stones throw from the intersection.
• Telescope making links
• • Many good links on making AltAz mounts (zebu.uoregon.edu/~mbartels/altaz/altaz.html).
  • ATM's resource List (www.freenet.tlh.fl.us/~blombard).
• Astronomy-Mall.com (www.astronomy-mall.com/Astronomy-Mall).
• Stellafane (www.stellafane.com).
• Terrestrial Planet Finder (tpf.jpl.nasa.gov).
• Many Images of the moon (www.seds.org/nineplanets/nineplanets/pxmoon.html) .
• Solar Views (www.solarviews.com).
• Planetary Image Atlas (www-pdsimage.JPL.NASA.GOV/PDS/public/Atlas).
• Hubble Space Telescope Archive (oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pictures.html).
• Hummble Site (hubble.stsci.edu).
• StarStuff (www.starstuff.org).
• SpaceRef (www.spaceref.com), Your space refference.
• Astronomy Picture of the Day Archive (antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html).
• SkyView (skyview.gsfc.nasa.gov) virtual observatory.
• 2MASS (www.ipac.caltech.edu/2mass/) and (pegasus.astro.umass.edu/GradProg/2mass.html) Two Micron All Sky Survey.
• Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph Experiment (LASCO) (http://lasco-www.nrl.navy.mil/lasco.html).
• AAVSO Network to Search for Optical Counterparts of Gamma-Ray Bursts (www.aavso.org/grb.stm).
• High Altitude Observatory (www.hao.ucar.edu).
• Asteroid Comet Impact Hazards (impact.arc.nasa.gov).
• • Unusual Minor Planets (cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/Unusual.html).
  • Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/PHACloseApp.html).& nbsp; Of particular interest to me are LB16 and AN10 which will pass at a distance closer than the moon's orbit. LB16 currently only has one opposition charted so it's predicted orbit will likely change as new data comes in. It's expected to swing by in 2004. In 2027 AN10 will visit earth. It's orbit is calculated with three oppositions meaning it't much more likely to really showup ontime and in place. With further data LB16 could either get closer or farther away. When AN10's orbit was first predicted (only one opposition at the time) it's error envelope included earth. With further data it was found to just pass within the moon's orbit and miss the earth.
  • Forthcoming Close Approaches To The Earth (cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/CloseApp.html).&nbs p; This is the document to look at when you want to know who will visit next and how far away. It has all close approaches to 0.2 AU away from earth or within 20% of the distance of between the sun and earth. On Sep 19th, 2000 we will have a visiter at 0.0477 AU and on Oct 31st anotehr one will pass at 0.07386 AU. LB16 and AN10 are expected to pass at around 0.25% of the distance between the sun and earth.
• Mars Global Surveyor (mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/index.html).
• Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) (ltpwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/tharsis/mola.html). There are full data on the shape of Mars including 1 degree and .5 degree elevation data sets.
• Planetary photojournal by JPL (photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov).
• NASA's Origins Program (origins.jpl.nasa.gov).