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I have been an amateur astronomer since I was about 14. I became an enthusiastic observer of the skies and avid reader of popular astronomy texts. Unfortunately, as most parents to teenagers, my mum and dad did not understand how much a decent telescope really costs. One could say I'm kind of compensating for that now...
Observational astrophysics has shown to be an ideal combination of my physics background (I got my PhD in experimental atomic physics in 1991 and have been working in industry since, first in telecom and now in venture capital) and my astronomy hobby. Photometry and spectroscopy are fields of amateur astronomy that include lots of hairy instrument calibration and complex data analysis. Also, in a light-polluted area with bad seeing, photometry is still doable, compared to e.g. deep-sky imaging. I'm a member of STAR, our local astronomy club and SAAF, a Swedish association of active amateurs. In the Internet era, it's a lot easier to keep in touch with other amateurs. I use to visit Cloudy Nights and the Swedish forum Astronomiguiden. To many amateur astronomers, stargazing seems to be a complement to and confirmation of various religious beliefs. I tend to take the opposite viewpoint. To me, the mind-bogging vastness of the universe is a very comforting sign that we are not the centre of the universe at all, nor created to fulfil any higher cosmic purpose. The mere scale of it all, compared to the little ball of cosmic dust we inhabit, makes it impossible to believe that we are but a marginal phenomenon in the cosmic zoo. But if there is no by external powers defined meaning with our lives, then we are free - free to define the content of our lives, free to choose our purpose and destiny. |
