oriel36 wrote:

There is a tendency to think of astronomy in terms of amateur and
professional or to be more precise,to think of it as a hobby as
opposed to a working career based on magnification equipment and an
exercise at night,it has less to do with raw talent as it has to do
with a career choice and the merit system,dysfunctional as it is,
reflects this current view.

Huh? Some people think of astronomy as the egg on top of the turtle on top

of a Big Mac. So take your thorizine and find a friend ... eggplant maybe?





The rewards are only for conformity and
those who make up the numbers for whatever particular bandwagon is in
vogue and even the old empiricists have remarked on this difference
between science and vocation which has changed over their lifetimes -

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today...00/8594561.stm

I practice astronomy as an avocation,doing what I need to do in an era
which has no merit system yet I do not complain and look forward to a
time when people return to their senses and start working off
interpretation and applying speculation only when needed thereby
allowing modifications and adaptations which are an integral part of
astronomy.

Is it so much to ask that professional career astronomers accept that
the Ra/Dec framework is a genuine observational convenience for
predicting events within the 365/366 day calendar system thereby
relieving the conceptual gridlock which currently is preventing
productive work from being done in areas where planetary dynamics and
terrestrial effect mesh and particularly the huge modification to
bring the difference between climate and weather in line with modern
imaging power.