In response to your comments which seem to imply this does not qualify as an amatuer effort:

A) Read The Title: "Backyard Search for Asteroids and Extrasolar Planets"

B) Read the complete text for comments such as:

B1) "An ingenious arrangement of three homebuilt 14-inch telescopes on fixed mountings is enabling Tucson-based amateur astronomer Roy Tucker to conduct a backyard hunt for asteroids whose quality is on par with the best professional searches in the world."

B2) "he hopes to expand the system, which initially cost him just $12,000". Note Millions have been spent on NASA sponsored systems.

B3) "GNAT is seeking involvement by universities, small colleges, schools, and serious amateurs"

C) An instrument engineer is not by definition an astronomer. While working at an observatory obviously gives him access to valuable advice, astronomy is not his profession. I work with a lot of instrument engineers and none have ever claimed to be astronomers.

D) If you knew even as little as I know about amatuer astronomy you would know that the cost and all the equipment mentioned is within the realm of advanced amatuer astronomers.

E) The important issue is not the field of view, but the amount of Sky scanned which is noted as "12 square degrees of sky per hour and produces roughly 1 gigabyte of imagery per night". That works out to about 2160 square degrees per month assuming 12 hours of viewing on the 15 darkest days per month and a potential 34,560 square degrees per month for the proposed 16 site system (48/3 for EP). This compares to the spaceguard target of 6,000 square degrees per month (http://impact.arc.nasa.gov/reports/spaceguard/sg_7.html). The limiting magnitude is lower (20.5 vs 22) but compares well with current professional programs as can be seen from the online notices at MPC (http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/mpec/RecentMPECs.html)

F) I certainly don't claim this should replace proposed professional programs which are needed to go beyond current capabilities, but I do think this could add significantly to our current capabilities at a cost bearable by private organizations ($180,000 total) which seem to recognize the danger better than national governments. The biggest benefit is the potential global coverage which would reduce missed opportunities due to bad weather or the nearbye forest fires frequent in the states where existing programs reside.

G) As goofball as some of the ideas and strategies of the SFF leadership can be, I seriously doubt they think amatuer efforts alone are sufficient. Such a realization does not prevent the Planetary Society from promoting amatuer efforts.

Regards,
Mark