What Is An Amateur Astronomer?

Let us begin by defining “amateur astronomer”. According to a dictionary, an amateur astronomer is “someone who loves astronomy, and cultivates it as a hobby”. At IAU colloquium 98 (The Contributions of Amateurs to Astronomy), Williams (1988) discussed this issue at length. He proposed that, to be an amateur astronomer, one must be an astronomer – able to do astronomy with some degree of skill; he then defined an amateur astronomer as “someone who carries out astronomy with a high degree of skill, but not for pay”.

Unfortunately, the word “amateur” has negative connotations to many people. This is partly because of the unfortunate choice of the word; “volunteer astronomers” might be a better choice. It is partly because there are indeed a few amateurs whose ideas and attitudes might be judged rather bizarre – but the same is true for some professionals. There might even be a hint of snobbery, especially in cultures in which qualifications (as opposed to ability) are paramount. Professionals certainly respect the contributions of the “superstars” of amateur astronomy: Prank Bateson, Robert Evans, Patrick Moore and the like. We tend to hold these people as examples, though very few amateurs are willing or able to contribute at this level. There are thousands of “rank-and-file amateurs” worldwide. They can and do contribute significantly to the advancement of astronomy.

I prefer to define amateur astronomer extremely broadly. In this case, their education, knowledge, skills at instrumentation, computing, observing, teaching and other astronomical activities could be anything from zero to PhD level in astronomy or a related field. Many amateur astronomers are professionals in other scientific or technical fields.

For decades, planetariums have been created to serve the cause of astronomical enlightenment – to offer people knowledge and understanding and a sense of place in a universe far bigger than themselves. It is an important role and one that we in planetariums continue to play – changing, we hope, as times, technology, educational philosophies, and our view of the universe change.

The first projection planetarium was demonstrated by the Zeiss Optical Company at the Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany in 1923. By 1970, the height of the Apollo moon program, there were an estimated 700 to 800 planetariums in the world, half of them less than six years old. Today, 26 years later, that number has more than doubled to a little over 2,000.

The world organization of the planetarium profession is the International Planetarium Society with over 600 members in more than 30 countries. Based on figures compiled in the 1995 IPS Directory, we find that slightly more than half of the world's planetariums are located in North America, with large numbers also in Asia and Europe, but relatively few in other parts of the world. If we consider distribution by country, we find that half are in the United States, more than 300 are in Japan, and Germany ranks third with nearly 100. Nineteen countries have ten or more planetariums.

Some 33 percent of the worlds’ planetariums are located in primary or secondary schools; 17 percent are at colleges and universities; 15 percent are part of museums and science centers; 7 percent are associated with observatories or other institutions.

Introduction

Distance education has a track record in astronomy and is already making a significant contribution worldwide. It will make an even greater contribution in the future, not only at-a-distance, but through greater use of self-study materials on- campus, where it will liberate staff for more appropriate forms of face-to-face teaching, and help overcome the need to do more and more with less and less resource. Distance education offers huge promise in meeting the educational needs of a burgeoning world population, and because low costs can be achieved there is no need for people in areas of material deprivation to face mental deprivation also. The IAU and The Open University can be proactive in promoting the spread of distance education, and of self-study on campus.

What is (successful) distance education?

Distance education is NOT as shown in Figure 1, though its distinctive feature is that the student is remote from the university or college! But in place of a megaphone a mixture of media is used in which printed texts usually carry the bulk of the educational material. There can also be audiovisual and computing media (including use of the Internet and of “multimedia”), and practical work. It is important to play to the strengths of the various media – a current pitfall is that multimedia can turn out to be little more than an expensive book.

The Present

There is no doubt that the science of astronomy is now in an exhilarating state. We are in the era of the 10 m optical telescope. Radio astronomy rivals optical astronomy in both positional precision and sensitivity. Observation from space has opened access to a wide range of frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum. The spectacular achievements of the Hubble Space Telescope underline the success story of space astronomy. At all wavelengths, detector technology has made striking advances in sensitivity and, coupled with cheap, sophisticated and powerful computers, raw data can be transformed into useful scientific data with breathtaking speed. One has only to add up the number of papers published in the three major astronomical journals to realise that one must read 100 journal pages a day (every day) to keep up with the literature in these three journals alone. Astronomy at the close of the 20th century is indeed exhilarating.

But there are indications that all is not well. Not unexpectedly the cost of new astronomical facilities is being called into question. Currently, no one nation can afford to finance a new telescope of the 10 m class and international consortia are now a commonplace to finance such facilities, e.g. the ESO 4 × 8 m telescopes in Chile. The great cost of science more generally, is now being seriously questioned, particularly in those areas of science which are fundamental, e.g. astronomy, particle physics, and which are not regarded as being currently relevant to industrial and commercial activity.

As the first speaker at this Colloquium, it is my pleasure to welcome the participants (and the readers of these Proceedings), on behalf of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) and its Commission 46 (Teaching of Astronomy). It is also my pleasure to thank our hosts University College London, and The Open University; the Scientific Organizing Committee, chaired by Lucienne Gouguenheim, and especially the Local Organizing Committee, chaired by Barrie Jones and Derek McNally. They have made this meeting most enjoyable and successful.

Eight years ago, many of us were in Williamstown, USA, for the first IAU Colloquium on astronomy education. Since then, there have been enormous changes – political, economic, and technological – which have affected our work. There have also been about 100 IAU conferences on research topics, but this is only the second on education. We all agree that we must work to correct that imbalance!

We are here to catch up on what has happened in astronomy education in the last eight years. We are here to teach and learn, through lectures, posters, and discussions – both formal and informal. We are here to renew old friendships, and make new ones. These human dimensions of this Colloquium are only hinted at in these Proceedings, but I assure you that they occurred.

Why is Astronomy Education Important?

Education is important to astronomers because it affects the recruitment and training of future astronomers, and because it affects the awareness, understanding and appreciation of astronomy by taxpayers and politicians who support us. We have an obligation to share the excitement and the significance of our work with students and the public.

A cultural role of astronomical education at all levels is well known and it is needless to repeat the corresponding arguments. Nobody denies it, but nobody can propose any universal way of introducing Astronomy on a level this branch of science deserves.

There is a good tradition to appreciate Astronomy in Russian schools. For more than a century part of the natural history science in school dedicated to the Universe has been considered as a separate part of the school curriculum in Russia. Before 1917 it was named Cosmography, and Astronomy thereafter. And up to now there is no decision or prescription to rule it out of the school program.

Nevertheless the teaching of Astronomy becomes less and less. Astronomy is taught only then and there where the enthusiasts of this subject are in existence. But the recent process of liberation of the educational system demands different approaches. Up to the present time several attempts to integrate astronomy with physics have not been very successful. The reason is the difference between their educational purposes.

The main purpose of this report is to emphasize the advantage of a somewhat more balanced program incorporating physics, astronomy and environment. Such a choice provides a more natural reason for integration, based on the ideal common to all three parts, to consider the world we live in as our home and property. The most general and fundamental ideas should be emphasized in such a course. As for astronomy, whose social importance is enormous in spite of the negligible teaching time, the necessary requirement is to elaborate a certain school minimum of astronomical knowledge.

The eccentricity is very small

Most textbooks of physics present the terrestrial orbit by a drawing which shows an ellipse of substantial eccentricity. This suggests a remarkable variation of the distance between Sun and Earth during the year up to a value of about 3:1 and more. Imagine the dramatic variation in size of the radiating area of the Sun seen by the terrestrial inhabitants with all the terrible consequences for temperature. All this is not true. There is no obvious change in size of the solar disc.

In nature the numerical eccentricity of the terrestrial orbit is only ∈ = e/a = 0.01675 (a = major or long axis, b = minor or short axis, e = focal length). This value is so small, that this ellipse cannot be distinguished from a circular orbit in a drawing when using a normal pen (a/b = 1.00014). The deviation would be 1/20 of the width across the line of the pencil. By what procedure would it be possible to measure this small eccentricity using only simple means in the classroom?

Observe the varying size of the solar disc

A first approach could be the idea to take photographs of the Sun throughout the whole year. The angular width of the solar disc varies by about 3% within this period. The focal length f = 50 mm of a normal camera produces an image of the Sun, which is 0.4 mm in diameter on the film. Trying to determine the eccentricity from these pictures better than 10% would mean ability to measure difference of 1μm in size on the film.

Introduction

Sydney Observatory is a museum of astronomy and a public observatory. It is Australia's oldest existing observatory and is now a branch of the Powerhouse Museum, the largest museum in the southern hemisphere. With 65,000 visitors each year, the observatory is popular with the public. Visitors can come during the day to see exhibits and audiovisuals and in the evenings on telescope viewing sessions. They can also take part in school holiday workshops, adult education courses or a telescope-making course. In addition, many school groups come along during the school terms to extend the astronomical knowledge of their students. Other professional services provided by the observatory include an annual guidebook with up-to-date information for the sky as seen from Sydney and an astronomical information service for the public and the media.

In this paper we will mainly discuss selected aspects of our educational activities, exhibitions and equipment, highlighting recent developments in the 1990s.

Recent Innovations in Education

Open Nights

A maximum of only 45 people can be accommodated at any one time in one of our regular evening sessions. During school holidays this is nowhere near enough to meet the demand. When there is a major astronomical event, we like to give more people a chance to look through our telescopes. At these times we organise open nights at which up to 1 000 people can attend.

Special open nights have been held to view lunar eclipses, a favourable opposition of Mars and the ring plane passage of Saturn. During the collision of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter we held six open nights, each attracting over 1 000 people.

Introduction

There is no necessity to argue about a vital need of an extension of astronomy and space knowledge equivalent to a modern state of the natural sciences. Astronomy teaching both professionally and for amateurs in the form of general courses is particularly needed nowadays because of the spread of various forms of mysticism in Russia.

The main goal of astronomy teaching is to help students to become aware of the place of humanity in the Universe. In this connection it is necessary to study not only astronomy but also other relevant courses simultaneously. Such complex astronomy study plays a significant role. It is necessary to show a close interaction of astronomy with other sciences such as traditionally mathematics, physics, chemistry and also biology and psychology, which just begin to be integrated in the field of space sciences. One cannot disregard other aspects of science development – the philosophy of science and the morality of any scientific research. These notions must be discussed with future scientists from the first steps in their education. Thus the association of astronomy and other subjects is rewarding. This purpose has been realized successfully in the Titov's Astronautics Club.

The Astronautics Club at the Sankt-Petersburg Palace of Youth Creativity is a supplementary education form for middle and high school students. This Club was founded after the space flight of the second Russian astronaut German Titov in 1961 and will celebrate in October its 35-year anniversary. Students attend the Club classes after school hours. The Club unites students who are interested in the study of space exploration and research.

Our motivations for the creation of “Plaza del Ciel”

We consider that one of the most important aspects in the harmonic development of a person is his relationship with the natural environment in which he lives: in that environment he initially trains and enlarges his curiosity and the capacity for astonishment, both innate properties of human beings. It is so much so that we could locate the germ of all creative future activities, scientific or otherwise, in what happens with those characteristics during the years of childhood, that if fully developed will help children to become sensitive and critical adults. So we consider it necessary to generate the mechanisms to reinforce the sensibility, the critical observation and the interaction with natural phenomena, in a systematic way, as we propose in “Plaza del Cielo”.

Education by means of Astronomy is the principal nucleus of our proposal. This is so especially because we consider that those aspects of Nature studied by Astronomy and the way this science works is a powerful tool to motivate children and adults, that it is one of the best ways to study Nature, and that it brings us as educators new means to show the evolution and full integration among the many ways, not only scientific, Humanity has constructed throughout History in order to comprehend not only the Universe, but ourselves as well.

The experience of working with amateur astronomers in the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States and in Ukraine shows a noticeable lack of literature, especially educational and methodological. The amateurs, possessing an observational base, do not know what best to observe at a given moment, and those, who are not yet ready for practical work in astronomy, do not know how to be prepared.

A series of brochures under the title “The Atlas of Amateur Astronomy”has been prepared, which pursues the purpose of delivering to amateurs a minimum of the necessary information on the following items:

1. Popular scientific reviews (lectures) on various directions in astronomy and astrophysics.

2. Methodological articles on the bases of observations and their processing.

3. Programs of observations, finding charts of variable stars, short information on comets, meteor showers etc.

4. Help material (tables, ephemerides, items of information from the General Catalogue of Variable Stars etc.).

5. Observations made by the amateurs themselves.

Five issues of “The Atlas of Amateur Astronomy”have been published. Together they contain information on about 60 objects, for which finding charts and comparison stars are given.

Part I contains the introductory articles, description of a structure of the atlas, which is repeated in the other issues, finding charts for 20 variable stars, recommendations for observations and the table of Julian dates from 1980 till 1995 (the atlas was issued in 1990).

Part II contains the first lecture from a cycle “Variety in the world of variable stars” on a theme “Long-period variables”. In this part the finding charts with comparison stars for 30 variables are given.

Introduction

Introductory remarks on astronomy education in Croatia are given. Since the learning process is a complex intellectual and emotional process which should be supported during the interaction with the teacher, different approaches should be used. Tests could give useful insight into preconceptions. The following approaches should be balanced: historical approach, discovery approach (by the use of self-made tools and courtyard observations), and thorough inclusion of novel scientific results and views (to which a special precaution has been paid).

The Croatian Experience

This is a report about an experience in teaching astronomy to the students who will become teachers in physics or physics and mathematics. It should be stressed that astronomy in Croatia is not a standard subject in any schools, except as an elective course in some grammar and high schools; furthermore, astronomical concepts are partly exposed within physics.

The first step toward students should be mutual acquaintance. In order to test students’ previous knowledge, I used 20–25 questions mainly of a general nature (starting in 1975). I had the opportunity to teach at all four Croatian universities: Zagreb, Osijek, Rijeka and Split. People in these towns may have different backgrounds. Zagreb is the capital of Croatia and cosmopolitan. Osijek is the center of Slavonia and belongs to an agricultural and Panonian environment. Split is heart of Dalmatia and situated on the Adriatic Sea – in the Mediterranean region. Without regard to differences in life attitudes, temperament and historical background of populations, the test showed a low level of general knowledge in natural sciencies, especially regarding comprehension of objects and scientific terms.

We are all aware of the fact that Astronomy teaching is not an easy task for many different reasons which we are going to examine during this Colloquium. The present contribution focuses on one of these reasons we consider of major importance for Astronomy in the school: Teacher Training.

Teacher training has been debated extensively for a long time and discussion is being presently livened up.

Institutions and associations are promoting research, studies and comparisons on this issue. For instance, the Osnabriick conference “Teacher Education in Europe: Evaluation and Perspectives” (June 1995) – the International Forum of Rome (September 1995) and, specially devoted to Astronomy, the EU/ESO Workshop “Astronomy teaching in the European secondary school” (Garching, 1994), SAIt Workshop in Reggio Calabria “European Science Teacher Training” (September 1995), Conferences of Teaching Astronomy in Spain, the Constitutional Conference of the European Association for Astronomy Education (EAAE, Athens, 1995).

It is difficult to treat Astronomy teacher training without including it in a more general context. Teacher training does not only mean providing teachers with suitable teaching skills for each subject. First of all, teachers should bear in mind the interaction with a social and cultural reality that may affect learning processes. And the educational (and teaching) system is not neutral to the external framework. European and non-European countries have their own national differences with different school systems and choices made in the field of teacher training. Time does not allow us to go in detail into a comparison of the various solutions adopted in different countries.

Sundials in my life

Following the inclusion of Astronomy in the revised National Science Curriculum for England and Wales the Association for Astronomy Education, AAE, embarked on a programme of in-service training workshops for teachers to help them to understand the new ideas and deliver the new curriculum. Teacher confidence and knowledge has been the greatest challenge to establishing astronomy in school curricula. As part of the the AAE team I gave presentations on a host of activities including simple cut and paste sundials for pupil projects. We are now seven years on from the revised Science Curriculum and my interest in sundials has stepped up a gear. I have developed an interest in real dials, both studying existing dials and making dials for the homes of friends and families and for schools. This presentation, which has as its focus, the sundial as an architectural feature, uses slides I have taken of some of the dials to be seen in the central London area including some of my own. I am grateful to the British Sundial Society for a list of dial locations in London.

Understanding the hour lines – a model helps

To help explain how hour lines are related to the Suns motion I have developed a three dimensional stick and card model. The model, in four pieces, builds up gradually during a workshop presentation. I start with an equatorial dial showing 15 degree angles marked on an equatorial plane. (360 degrees / 24 hours – the only maths you really need to understand dials.)

Introduction

A summary of work related to astronomy education carried out during the last three years in India is presented here. Since India is a huge country and many educational efforts are made by individuals alone, this report cannot be regarded as complete, but a specific sampling.

General Information

India has more than 200 Universities, 8000 colleges, and about 100,000 schools, 33 planetaria, more than 100 museums and about 60 well known amateur astronomers' clubs. Scores of dedicated astronomy oriented school teachers, act as nuclei of astronomy education for the general public and school children.The astronomical almanac, used in a typical household is in some way related to the stars in the sky and the movements of the Sun, the Moon and the planets. Traditionally, a rudimentary knowledge of the celestial sphere is common. The recent developments in space technology have brought a fascination and glamour to modern astronomy for all age groups, and this is noticeably reflected in the number of media coverages of astronomy. There are about 12,000 telescopes of aperture no less than six inches, made by amateur astronomers.

Public Awareness

During the past three years there have been at least 300 six inch telescopes made by school children and laymen, under some project or other funded by the government and an equivalent number is also produced from private and individual resources. It takes about two weeks to grind and polish the mirror and assemble it in a suitable mount. After aluminizing the average cost comes out to be in the range US dollars 60–100, for a telescope of size greater than six inches.

Introduction

Having recently returned to England (where I am an Open University tutor) after having spent about 18 years teaching Physics and Astronomy at the University of Nigeria at Nsukka in the Eastern part of Nigeria, I find myself in an unusual position to understand the difficulties of teaching such a rapidly changing subject as astronomy in an isolated place like Nsukka. For example I have seen a great contrast between the OU Astronomy and Planetary Science course material and the few available text books at Nsukka. Although not very mathematical, the OU material includes a lot of the latest research results and theories, whereas at Nsukka the books have hardly changed in the past 20 years.

I am aware that the Astronomy group at Nsukka is not unique. There are other small isolated groups of astronomers (or in some cases only a single astronomer) around the world who are trying to interest their students in astronomy against great odds. These astronomers appreciate the importance of astronomy in awakening interest in science and thus strengthening the basic sciences and developing technological progress. However Governments and even some international agencies often take the view that astronomy is a luxury that is not needed by such developing countries and therefore give little or no support to these efforts.

Main Problems

Apart from the lack of teaching materials, extremely limited access to computers and generally poor infrastructure, the one major problem is the extremely poor communications. Often phone, fax and mail do not work reliably, and needless to say there is no e-mail or internet.

INTRODUCTION

A distance teaching course in Astronomy was developed three years ago by the CNED (Centre National d'Enseignement Distance) in collaboration with professional astronomers from the University of Paris Sud XI.

We wish to present our course with:

• the conceivers and designers’ point of view

• the learners’ point of view.

Creation of the course.

Centre National d'Enseignement a Distance (CNED).

The CNED was created in 1939. It is a public administration under the supervision of the French Ministry of Education. Its first founding mission is to provide teaching and training to those who cannot take courses under usual conditions. But the CNED now operates at all the levels of the educational system from primary up to higher education, in all fields of training, initial, vocational and continuing education.

In 1995-1996, 360 000 students were registered in 2 500 training modules. Among them, 80% are adults, 190 000 on post baccalaureat level programmes (27 000 registered students reside outside France, in 176 countries).

A partnership between CNED and Paris XI University.

As no such course existed for astronomy, its creation was timely. So, as we did for meteorology in 1990, the CNED which does not deliver diplomas, offered and set up a partnership through an agreement with the University of Paris XI.

We worked with a team of Professors from that university, professional astronomers who are also well-known for working in collaboration with primary and secondary school teachers (CLEA).Together we decided, conceived and designed a remote teaching course with a multi-resource system.