One of the great things about astronomy is that it's really one of the few fields of science where amateurs can still have a large impact. Most nearby supernov

One of the great things about astronomy is that it's really one of the few fields of science where amateurs can still have a large impact. Most nearby supernovae are actually discovered by amateurs, not professionals (including one just a few days ago [1]). In fact, the Japanese amateurs are famous for discovering supernovae because they get to catch all the ones that go off when it's night across the Pacific Ocean. But they also have collected a lot of very good data on variable stars, as well. [2] Part of the reason amateurs have been able to play such a big role is that traditionally astronomers have used their resources to harness very large telescopes to study small patches of the sky very deeply. Study of bright objects across large regions of the sky only requires small telescopes, so it wasn't really worth professional astronomers' time to conduct those observations. This has been changing lately with the rise of robotic telescopes, however. Now that professional astronomers don't have to operate the telescopes themselves, they can collect bright transient data across wide swathes of the sky. [3] [1] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27185965 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27185965 [2] http://www.aavso.org/ http://www.aavso.org/ [3] e.g., http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~assassin/index.shtml http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~assassin/index.shtml