Designed to fail? - the current state of amateur double star astronomy

I am now convinced that binary or double star measurement, with a view
to subsequent publication, does not represents a sensible or
productive use of time for almost any amateur astronomer!

This is because most of the wider pairs - such as those typically
measured by amateurs - only change very, very slowly and so they only
need to be measured perhaps once a year. With no reliable, easily
accessible and up-to-date catalogue that includes all the recent
measurements there is a significant chance that amateurs will be
wasting their time duplicating the work of others.

There is also the problem that many of the systems listed in the
Washington Double Star Catalog (WDS) catalogue are known or strongly
suspected to be line-of-sight double stars of no astronomical
significance and again measuring these cannot be the best use of
observers time.

http://www.martin-nicholson.info/dou...doublestar.htm