Siddhartha Jain:
I stay at a place (Bombay) with considerable light pollution thus
ruling out taking up any serious viewing with a telescope. Also, I
can't afford the expensive telescopes for deep space viewing or CCD
imagers for astrospectroscopy. I read a bit about radio astronomy but
it seems limited to the observing phenomenon on the earth and planets
close by. My question is how can I involve myself into amateur deep
space astronomy, either all by myself or working with a group of
amateur astronomers? I am an IT Security professional, I can program in
Perl/C, have worked as Unix administrator extensively and understand
basic trigonometry, calculus, physics and physical chemistry (although
that was ten years back but I can refresh myself again if I go thru the
books).

I'm sorry, but you can't be an astronomer. You are overqualified.

OK, just kidding. I've been in Bombay, so I know what you're up
against. You didn't say whether you can easily get out of the city, or
whether you have a local astronomy club. I know that there are many
amateur astronomers in India, so you should be able to find a club for
guidance. Meanwhile, you could consider getting a pair of binoculars
and a tripod with a holder for the binoculars. One of Bombay's many
very fine machine shops could build you a binocular holder that will
mount on a tripod or other support. Good luck!

Davoud

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