Amateur X-ray Astronomy
Main article: Amateur X-ray astronomyCollectively, amateur astronomers observe a variety of celestial objects and phenomena sometimes with equipment that they build themselves. The United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) is the home of the US's only undergraduate satellite program, and has and continues to develop the FalconLaunch sounding rockets. In addition to any direct amateur efforts to put X-ray astronomy payloads into space, there are opportunities that allow student-developed experimental payloads to be put on board commercial sounding rockets as a free-of-charge ride.
There are major limitations to amateurs observing and reporting experiments in X-ray astronomy: the cost of building an amateur rocket or balloon to place a detector high enough and the cost of appropriate parts to build a suitable X-ray detector.
Read more about this topic: X-ray Astronomy
Famous quotes containing the words amateur and/or astronomy:
“The true gardener then brushes over the ground with slow and gentle hand, to liberate a space for breath round some favourite; but he is not thinking about destruction except incidentally. It is only the amateur like myself who becomes obsessed and rejoices with a sadistic pleasure in weeds that are big and bad enough to pull, and at last, almost forgetting the flowers altogether, turns into a Reformer.”
—Freya Stark (1893–1993)
“It is noticed, that the consideration of the great periods and spaces of astronomy induces a dignity of mind, and an indifference to death.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)