Amateur Astronomers Kiosk
The listings below represent opportunities for amateur astronomers, small observatories,
and students to get involved in astronomical research on various levels,
including Hubble-related projects.
It is maintained by
Max Mutchler
at the
Space Telescope Science Institute.
Hubble-related research opportunities
- The Hubble Space Telescope
amateur observing program.
- In this age of online data archives, you don't
necessarily need to make observations yourself. You can do
"archival research" by searching the
HST archive,
retrieving raw FITS format data, and performing your own
data analysis.
The HST archive has mirror sites in Canada at the
CADC, and in Europe at the
ST-ECF.
This is the real data for research, not the processed press release JPEG
images
that we all know and love. See the National Space Science
Data Center for
more on-line archives.
- Amateur astronomers sometimes conduct supporting observations
for HST users. For example,
AAVSO members monitor variable stars,
which is very important in itself, but they have also
sometimes triggered HST target-of-opportunity observations when
they detect a nova outburst, and provided useful data obtained
simultaneously with the HST observations of variable stars. See also the
Center for Backyard Astrophysics,
VSNET, or
AFOEV.
Other research opportunities
Research opportunities for students
Some online astronomical resources