Amateur Astronomers vs Recreational Sky Observers

mca

最近在 AAVSO email communication 中的討論，值得一讀：

" .......  You are touching on a problem that is a lot more complicated than you might imagine. The main issue here is one of definitions. Since the 1920s, when Albert G. Ingalls and Scientific American began to promote amateur telescope making, and therefore small telescope usage as a hobby, an increasingly large body of individuals have taken pride in identifying themselves as "amateur astronomers." Books have been written encouraging the use of this term for anyone who displays even a casual interest in looking at the night skies with a small telescopes, magazines have thrived based on a large and growing public interest in astronomy as well as telescope making, and national as well as local organizations have been founded to promote amateur astronomy as an everyman's hobby interest without regard to pursuing science in the process.  

Amazing progress in the science of astronomy, compounded by the need to justify the US space program and enormous expenditures on space science, have kept the subject in the forefront of public attention. The result, unfortunately, has been that the rather weak connection that existed between the meaning of an astronomer as a scientist who does astronomy, and the amateur astronomer who does astronomy for scientific purposes but not for pay, has long since been lost. Instead, popular sources that conflate any and all interest in the night sky with amateur astronomy have continually diluted, some would say polluted, that connection to science beyond
recognition.

One way to gradually work out of this dilemma is to recognize the distinction and properly identify the thousands of enthusiastic non-scientists who enjoy looking at the night sky as "recreational sky observers." It is important to acknowledge that many of these recreational sky observers are highly skilled and indeed may know the night sky much better than most astronomers but simply choose not to use those skills for the pursuit of scientific purposes. The science simply does not interest them.

The real issue is that there is a very significant cache associated with being an astronomer, with its implied connection with actually doing science. Therefore, and this is an important distinction, there must be no implication as to observational skill level in making the distinction between a recreational sky observer and an astronomer, whether amateur or professional, when it comes to finding one's way around the night sky. The distinction must always reflect only that singular distinction involved with whether or not one pursues scientific purposes while observing.

There are good precedents from making this distinction an honorable one. One of the largest hobby activities, for example, is bird watching. Many "birders" are highly skilled experts at identification of birds in flight by silhouettes or flight patterns but have no interest whatsoever in actually participating in the science of ornithology, except perhaps to the extent that their participation in annual bird counts serve some scientific purpose. But the birders have no interest in being identified as amateur ornithologists, they simply are not interested in doing science. A similar case can be made for rock hounds vs. amateur geologists, and in a number of other sciences in which individuals perform real science but without compensation as an amateur in the truest sense of the word.

I therefore advocate, whenever I can find an audience, that the term Recreational Sky Observer be brought into use wherever appropriate. Perhaps most logically in discussions like this, as the actual amateur astronomers attempting to do science, we can encourage wider usage of the  expression with the hope that it will eventually find acceptance among the ninety percent or more of those who consider themselves amateur astronomers but who never practice the science of astronomy.

Tom Williams"