Re: (OT) Re: [APML] Long vs. Stacked Short Exposures

[Wei-Hao Wang <whwang@gmail.com>]

Hi Ray and Greg,

My feeling is, people in the US are more open on this, at least comparing to 
people in Asia.  In Taiwan (my country), there was a very long period when 
amateur astronomers and professional astronomers don't interact with each 
other.  Some professional astronomers think that amateur astonomy is 
worthless and students should not "waste" their time on taking pictures of 
stars or watching through eyepieces.  When I was a student in Taiwan, 
nobody said negative words to me about amateur astronomy.   However, I 
still felt some invisible pressure and I usually kept my amateur
activities quiet,
just like Ray.

I don't feel such pressure at all after I came to the US.  Some professors in
my institute like my amateur work, while others know that I'm trying to make 
myself a better researcher.  As Greg said, many researchers here were 
amateur astronomers before they went to the graduate schools.  

I still tend to keep my amateur activities quiet though, because officially I'm 
paid to do research but not to take pictures.  Nevertheless, I'm happy that 
amateur astronomy is appreciated by people here.

Wei-Hao

-- 
________________________________________________________________
Wei-Hao Wang  :)

Institute for Astronomy at University of Hawaii

Address:                       
2680 Woodlawn Drive         Personal Website:
Honolulu, HI 96822             http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~wang
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