Astronomy is one of the few scientific disciplines where amateurs make regular contributions that significantly aid the professional community. Some of this research is well within the capabilities of beginning observers.
* View and download the Beginners Guide
* Learn to use the facilities (and have some fun)
* Check out the WWW resources.
*Become a member, open an subscription.
*Ask Ed Wiley for any assistance you may need.
The Beginners Guide will get your started. Spend some sessions just having fun. The skill you learn will be essential to moving into a research area of your choice. You will learn to point the scope, take images, and download the pictures from our FTP site. You will learn how to use calibration frames to get the most out of your images and the links below provide some basic instruction on how calibration works. We do not recommend commercial, freeware or shareware products , but there are many good ones on the market for imaging processing, astrometry, photometry and other research tasks. Do not be intimidated! There are useful research programs that can be pursued, even using only the basic $50/month subscription and the RAS Observatory in Mayhill.
The RASO community is diverse, with interests ranging from discovering near-Earth asteroids to supernova searchs. Visit our research pages to learn more about our community.
Our members carry our their own research projects or collaborate with colleagues of their own choosing. Groups function as forums for exchange of ideas. You do not have to join a group to participate in RAS activities. Form you own group and have it listed here. Advanced observers who wich access to all telescopes in the system should consider the "global passport" option.
Three of our observatories have Minor Planet Center designations and RASO is among the most active amateur observatory communities in submitting asteroid data. This is an exciting field and the Minor Planet Center is eager to receive data. RASO observers working all over the world have discovered a number of NEOs (near Earth Objects) and well as contributing to discoveries of Main Belt asteroids and helping refine orbits of known asteroids.
RASO observers regularly report measurements of variable stars to AAVSO and the Webb Society and publish their results in a number of journals. Even if you have limited observing time, you can make a valuable contribution to science by observing, measuring and reporting variable stars and the associated data.
The scripting capabilities of GRAS scopes make them particularly suited for Supernova searches. Further, access to southern skies through our facilities in Australia presents particular opportunities for this research program.
Double star research is well within the capabilities of beginners and amateurs publish their results. An example is the neglected doubles project. Neglected doubles are double star systems not measured in 20+ years. The U.S. Naval Observatory maintains a catalogue of all double stars, and a special series of lists of these neglected doubles. Some have simply been neglected, some are lost, and some were probably just “ships passing in the night.” A large part of the fun is doing the detective work before you begin imaging; using various catalogues and digital sky surveys to find the likely pair. Most of the fun, of course, is using AREO2 to image the pairs. But, once you submit your first paper to the Journal of Double Star Observations or to the Webb Society, you will find that much of the fun is really sharing your data and results with a growing community of amateur and professional astronomers who all appreciate your hard work.