The club sounds great, and I hope you'll keep us informed about what you're up to. You know this bunch, if you need anything, you'll have people lining up to help out.

I don't know how your astronomy club operates, but I'd like to volunteer some general observations about how public outreach often falls flat on its face. All roads lead to NASA, and NASA's public outreach seems resolutely targeted at schoolkids. That's a fine and worthy focus, but kids are only a subset of the public. Dumbed-down material, a condescending tone, and a gently authoritarian attitude, don't cut it with grownups.

What works with adults is exemplified by Doug's site, and though I know I'm on controversial ground here, even the way that anomalists pursue their self-directed "research" is more in tune with the adult approach to science. It's clear that grownup amateur science is focused on making a contribution much more than receiving canned information; kids are in learning mode, adults are in work mode. Adults need the satisfaction of making a contribution.

I know that for me, making a contribution is a powerful draw. I've managed to acquire a couple of footnotes over the years as a result of my amateur image processing work. I'll always be proud of the miniscule role I played in the MER missions, after Ames used my "MOC-O-Matic" software to clean up site-selection images. They've taken it down now, but I make no apologies for being proud of a page on the Ames site that acknowledged the tiny role of the software.

It doesn't take much to make people feel like they're making a difference. You don't have to discover a new planet or be an astronaut; toiling in the vineyards for a footnote is often more than most people expect to achieve. And it's easier to offer a lot of small opportunities like that, while we're waiting for cheap civilian space transport.

You need to engage people's interest at first to get the ball rolling, but the way to keep their interest is to put them to work doing something. I'd sweep the floors at Mission Control; I'll bet I'm not the only one. Amateur Power is a vast and mostly untapped resource; I'd like to see it used to its fullest.