Interstellar: A Film About Amateur Astronomy And The Search For Extra-terrestrials
If there is one thankless hobby or job in this world, its Amateur Astronomy. Amateur Astronomers are under-funded, underrated and always taken for granted. Yet these little giants of space science are always willing to stretch the bounds of our scientific knowledge without the need to work within the restraints of some established scientific theory or database. Despite the unappreciated nature of this endeavor and often finding themselves at odds with the scientific establishment, Amateur Astronomers are responsible for some of the most significant milestones achieved in Astronomy.
Keiichiro Okamura, a Japanese amateur astronomer, was responsible for some of the best photos ever taken of Halleys Comet using just his telescope without the aid of computer-enhanced photography. Berto Monard of South Africa was recently honored by NASA after he became the first amateur astronomer to discover an afterglow of a gamma-ray burst, the most powerful explosion known in the Universe. Both were largely ignored or even belittled in the early years of their work.
Michael Oates is a British...