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Re: Backyard Search for Asteroids and Extrasolar Planets
E.P. Grondine — (archived)

My dear Mr. Eby -

Tucker is hardly an amateur - "Tucker, (is) an instrumentation engineer at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO)"

Note well the limited area scanned by this telescope: "scan a strip of sky 0.8° wide as the Earth turns."

Note also the limiting magnitude: "Their images reach a limiting magnitude of 20.5"

Since I have never claimed much expertise with astronomy, I feel confident that the comments in your post could not have been directed to me. As a matter of fact, I rely upon the opinions of experts in this field, such as those found at:

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/lunar_caps_011212-1.html

As for merits and direction of the two amatuer porgrams, the leadership of the Planetary Society, unlike that of the Space Frontier Foundation, understands that no amateur effort could ever be an adequate substitute for the professional effort which is very needed to deal with this rather immediate hazard.

ep

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