Common Misconceptions about Professional Astronomy F. A. Ringwald Original version of an article published in Sky & Telescope, June 1996, vol. 91, no. 6, p. 6 I've been an amateur astronomer since I was five years old, and it's still my favorite hobby. I'm a professional astronomer now; I've been one at least since I got my Ph.D. in 1993. We could probably count the previous six years of grad school too, since I didn't do anything else for a living. We might count as far back as 1983, when I started giving sky shows at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. Perhaps we could even count as far back as when I left high school and went off to college, graduating from my mother's birdwatching binoculars to a Boller & Chivens 16". Regardless, through the years friends have made me aware of myths surrounding professional astronomy, including: *That professional astronomers have three degrees (that sometimes prompt jokes about the "three-degree background"). These are the bachelor's, the master's, and the doctorate, or Ph.D.* In fact, few astronomers these days take the time to get master's degrees. Most go straight from their bachelor's to their doctorates. *That it takes four years to get a doctorate in astronomy.* It used to take four years, but since the 1960s it has taken six years, and is taking longer all the time. Master's degrees are rare largely because writing a master's thesis can easily consume an extra year. In some countries, one is allowed three years before one's funding runs out, but such systems often produce Ph.D.s who are in less competitive positions for jobs. *That once one has finished one's Ph.D., one has "made it".* Once you have your Ph.D., it doesn't get any easier. A new Ph.D. is still very much a beginner, far from being an established researcher. Tenure-track university faculty positions and other permanent jobs in the field are also hard to come by, these days. There has been relief from staff positions in space- and new ground-based observatories, but these positions are often "soft money" jobs. They are not permanent, and often end when the research grant expires. Nearly all young professional astronomers therefore spend 5 -- 10 years in a succession of temporary positions, called "postdocs". Some people complain, particularly those with families, but I don't. I like to travel, and the extra experience is useful. Doing astronomy professionally is a joy and a privilege. Even Johannes Kepler had employment problems: in this capricious business, one cannot become complacent, no matter how good one is. *That professional astronomers don't know constellations.* While this may be true for some theorists, it is seldom true for observers, at least not the good ones. Many of them have been amateur observers since an early age, after all, and knowing constellations is genuinely useful, for planning observations and checking the weather. I will however admit I still don't know some of the faint Southern constellations, such as Antlia or Horologium. There are exceptions to this, of course. A postdoc I know who grew up in a city saw the Milky Way for the first time only on his first observing run---on Mauna Kea, one of the best sites in the world. He's a curious case, though: he has never observed with any telescope smaller than 3.8 meters in aperture. *That professional astronomers do not own their own telescopes.* Well, the only telescope I ever owned was a hideous little 60-mm department store refractor---but it was good for introducing the neighbors to Saturn and the Moon. I never bothered to spend my own money on a better telescope because I was always at universities with large on-campus refractors, including 18.5" and 9.4" Clarks, and a 12" Grubb. Those telescopes were *really* good for when I wanted to look at Saturn and the Moon. *That professional astronomers spend their lives on mountaintops.* Since fall 1987, I have spent 207 nights at major observatories. Sometimes I spent over seven weeks per year on the mountain. That was an extraordinarily large amount of telescope time, and was utterly exhausting. After two weeks straight of all night, every night, I get so tired I stop *caring* about the secular evolution of cataclysmic variables---and that is very, very bad. Another problem with observing so much is not having time to make sense of the observations, much less write up and publish them. Computers have sped up data reduction considerably, but data analysis---producing new science from the numbers---can fill any amount of time. *That professional astronomers never observe just for fun.* Dull indeed is the professional who has lost touch with casual eyepiece observing. At Cerro Tololo in Chile, after we'd settled into a long series of exposures of one rapidly variable star, I left my partner at the controls of the 36" telescope and spent several happy hours looking through the eyepiece of the largely abandoned 16" at Omega Centauri, the the Trifid Nebula, NGC 5128, etc. In turn, I took over the 36" so my partner could lie on his back outside and look up at the center of the Milky Way, right overhead. One's first Southern-Hemisphere run broadens the mind: it was the first time I got to learn many new constellations since I was eight. True, the eye was surpassed in the 1800s by photography, which in turn was surpassed by electronic detectors. Even so, I enjoy observing with telescopes in the lowly 1-m-class, because I get to operate them myself and be close to the sky, even from inside the control room. It's fun to watch the stars zip by, and to see nebulae and galaxies filling the TV screen. When observing with a 4-m telescope or spacecraft, invariably operated by observatory staff, I feel like Captain Kirk; with most telescopes I observe with, I feel like Spaceman Spiff. *That professionals have little use for the work of amateur observers.* The Cambridge Guide to Astronomical Discovery, by W. Liller (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1992) shows amateur equipment both mighty and humble. With a camera and a homemade stereo viewer, Bill Liller discovers novae. By looking through the eyepiece of his homemade 10", Bob Evans discovered 10 supernovae; he's discovering more with his 16". Some amateurs can monitor 100 variable stars per night, because they know how to find them; while they use 16" telescopes, they use binoculars too. Comet hunters work with small, rich-field telescopes, including binoculars. Eyes are not state-of-the-art, but they work. Some training is beneficial, but this can be obtained easily enough from amateur societies such as the AAVSO and ALPO. What really makes amateur results useful is initiative, care, patience, and meticulous record-keeping. Also, when sophisticated equipment does get into the hands of amateurs, it is often put to excellent use. With prices dropping and user-friendliness improving, I expect to see more of this in the future. We love the amateurs. Having recently finished postdocs in England and Arizona, Ringwald is now on soft money at Penn State University. He began writing this essay during a cloudy night at Pic du Midi Observatory in the French Pyrenees.