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I was thinking:

What are the things, that hobby astronomers observe? (Things, that are in the domain of astronomy and hobby.)

I tried some googling, and I found just what do professional astronomers, but I was searching for hobby astronomers.

As far as I understand, hobby astronomers look at the things, that lie in or further than exosphere. Is this true?

So I came with this list:


Astronomers observe:

Objects:

  1. galaxies
  2. DSOs
  3. planets
  4. other solar system objects (comets, asteroids, sun – sunspots, moon – craters)
  5. quasars
  6. black holes (here I mean: if you know the position of the hypothetical black hole, you just point telescope there and say: "Oh, there is a black hole (but I can't see it)")
  7. constellations (with the naked eye)
  8. double stars (don't forget triplets!)
  9. meteors
  10. nebulae
  11. clusters (open and closed)

Phenomenons:

  1. transits of satellites (and ISS)
  2. transits of moons (Jupiter, Saturn ...)
  3. lunar, solar eclipses
  4. NLCs
  5. conjunctions

But this list isn't complete. I think that the Objects list is pretty complete, but I'd like to know, what phenomenons do astronomers look. (I am targeting to some special events, like NLCs and transits of moons and satellites, that fewer astronomers know.)

Question: What do hobby astronomers observe?

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  • $\begingroup$ All of them? I click "skip" $\endgroup$
    – peterh
    Jun 7, 2020 at 21:04
  • $\begingroup$ @User123 - open-ended questions for which basically every possible answer could be valid are discouraged in the Help Center. $\endgroup$
    – user24157
    Jun 8, 2020 at 16:38

1 Answer 1

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Anything above the earths surface is fair game. As long as they can talk about it they will try their best to see it or possibly not to see it, depending on who put it up there. About the only thing that the entire range of Amateur astronomers have in common is that they tend to think a little bit too much.

Rather than find the simplest and most practical explanation to what they see they seem to want to find the most complex explanation. I suppose that just gives them more reasons to talk about it. Only a small percentage of the group take themselves too seriously as you have probably noticed by now. :)

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