A Practical Guide to Lightcurve Photometry and Analysis
Brian D. Warner
A Practical Guide to Lightcurve Photometry and Analysis Foreword by Alan W. Harris
Brian D. Warner Minor Planet Observer 17995 Bakers Farm Road Colorado Springs, Colorado 80908 U.S.A.
[email protected]
Library of Congress Control Number: 2005933716 ISBN-10: 0-387-29365-5 ISBN-13: 978-0387-29365-3 Printed on acid-free paper. © 2006 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, Inc., 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed in the United States of America. 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 springer.com
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Foreword It is a pleasure and an honor to offer a few words of forward to Brian Warner's guide to photometry. In his preface, he makes a considerable point about amateurs and professionals, and those who dare or deign to step across the line supposedly dividing the two. Here I would like to make a few observations about the two monikers, and suggest that there is not, or at least should not be, a distinction between "amateur" and "professional." In preparing these remarks I referred to Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (1960 edition; not so new anymore, but that was when my collegiate experience began): am´a·teur, n. [F., fr. L. amator lover, fr. amare to love.] 1. One who cultivates a particular pursuit, study, or science, from taste, without pursuing it professionally; also, a dabbler. 2. In sports and esp. athletics, one who is not rated as a professional. Well... a "dabbler" eh? "not rated as a professional"? No wonder we have an identity problem here. Somehow in my youth as an amateur astronomer I missed this connotation of the term. To me, the meaning of the term amateur was dominated by its root, "to love," that is, one who does what he does out of love of the subject, not for remuneration (to the extent one can get away with that). In that context, most "professional" astronomers I know are also "amateurs": they love what they are doing and choose the profession primarily for that reason, not how much money they could earn. Indeed, I have often advised students that if they are smart enough to eke out a living in astronomy they are smart enough to get rich quick in some other field, thereby freeing themselves a bit later in life to become a "gentleman astronomer." This brings me to another perspective on "amateur" versus "professional." Most folks need to earn a living somehow, so almost every "amateur" astronomer is a "professional" at something else. And curiously, most of us who call ourselves "professional" astronomers are amateurs in other fields that