It isn’t so strange. Consider that a record number of Americans viewed the 2017 Solar Eclipse, nearly twice the viewership of recent super Bowl football games.
But why should you become an amateur astronomer? We talked to a few people at the SETI Institute to get their thoughts – we included them below in case.
One company that’s helping this interest is Unistellar, which makes urban amateur astronomy possible. While most astronomy is done in remote places without light pollution, Unistellar has designed the eVscope which is capable of pinpointing and showing the shape and colors of faint nebulae and galaxies in the sky.
Unistellar is so sensitive that an urban astronomer can observe Pluto directly in the eyepiece, like we did a few days ago from San Francisco.
Top 10 Reasons Why You Should Be an Amateur Astronomy
1. Become famous after finding a comet that might well be named after you
2. Be the first to detect a technologically advanced ET civilization
3. Get laid: nothing is sexier than a big… telescope.
4. Show the stars to your kids and dream with them about space exploration, and extraterrestrial life
5. Do something more than eat s’mores and swap stories while camping
6. Be more interesting at parties by talking about something else than politics and the last Apple gadget
7. Impress your friends and colleagues with stories about stars and the universe.
8. Be an expert in sci-fi movies and books
9. Learn to navigate with the stars in case of a zombie apocalypse
10. Boost your resume by teaching yourself useful skills in optics, detectors, and data analysis
Save
Monday, February 26, 2018 at 9:35AM 
