Expert: Tom Whiting - 9/18/2007

Question
How many amateur astronomers are there in the united states? in the world?

Thanks for trying to answer this question. I have searched the Internet with no luck, I can find nothing about it.

Thanks,

Mike

Answer
Hi Mike,
No, I've never seen it either....although I've never really researched it either.  Well, first off, how do you define an
"amateur astronomer"?  Have to own a scope? Have to
go out observing more than, say 3 times a year?  What about
all those "armchair" people that just attend your meetings and lectures but you never see them out in the dark actually
observing....are they also amateur astronomers, or not (?).
And where do you draw the line....or do you just want total
dues paying memberships nation wide and world wide?
See, it's more complicated than we think...what constitutes
and "amateur astronomer"?
Then of course it can be expensive...I doubt if you'd find
too many actual observers in Bangledesh, Ethiopia, or most
of the 3rd world countries...they are too busy just...surviving.

That being said, here would be a statistical way of estimating
it.  We have nearly 50 members in a city of about 100,000
folks.  I think everyone has joined that would or could
join, by now.  Ok, if we are "average club", only one in 2000
people join a club...and that can be extrapolated nationwide....
BUT, there are only actually 10 of us that go out observing
on a regular basis with our telescopes.  So that narrows it
down to only one in ten thousand people actually participitate as an 'active' observer.   That's not an unreasonable assumption considering the toughness and
abstractness of our great hobby.  Most people don't want
to give up control of their lives for the night sky, which you
pretty much have to do in our hobby....if the eclipse is from
1 - 4 am, you have to change your schedule, not the Universes' schedule, and a lot of people don't want to give
up that control of their life.
So perhaps using those numbers, you can extrapolate at least
an estimated number of  so-called "amateur astronomers"
in the country, and around the world.
Hope this helps,
Clear Skies,
Tom Whiting
Erie PA

PS..Oh, you can check the Sky & Telescope website, and other club websites of other cities, find out how many members they have, and their local populations, and run
several statistical analyses for other regions, doing the same
thing that I did for our local area.  I'll bet you'll find that
one in a thousand people, or one in 2000....is just about right.