Remember, the latin root word for amateur is amare, or love. Brent Watson once told me that Carl Sagan admitted to Brent on one occasion that he couldn't find his way around the night sky. You're right, Joe, we amateurs at least love what we do. -----Original Message----- From: Joe Bauman [mailto:bau@desnews.com] Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2003 10:48 AM To: Visit http://www.utahastronomy.com for the photo gallery. Subject: RE: [Utah-astronomy] I'd be happy with just ONE! Dale, I think you hit the nail right on the head. The difference between a credentialed scientist and an amateur often is that the first gets into science for love then winds up doing something a bit different than expected, for money; the other keeps it at the love level. We don't have the million-dollar research grants and don't make the big discoveries, but we do learn about the science and we have fun doing it. Respect, awe, reverence is what it's really about. In my case, amateur astronomy is simply part of my love for nature. It's a way to appreciate our universe. It's especially enjoyable to me to look at a galaxy or star cluster and think, No matter how hard humans might try, they will NEVER be able to damage this beautiful part of nature. Civilization may blot it out of the view for most through light pollution, but at least for now, we can still find dark enough places to enjoy it. -- Joe

Most of the "professionally trained" astronomers end up chasing grants researching the things that OTHER people are willing to pay them for and some even end up as software engineers. <g> My stuff is certainly not on-par with their level. But, I just take my time and within my budget I pursue the things that I AM INTERESTED IN.

Joe Bauman science & military reporter Deseret News bau@desnews.com (801) 237-2169 _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy