Comets: Seeing The Bigger Picture – Maximising the Contribution of Amateurs

The Rosetta Mission invited amateur astronomers to be part of a ground-based observing campaign for Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.  Amateurs, with greater access to telescope time and wider geographical coverage, can add important temporal coverage and wider scale observations to complement those of professional astronomers. They add the bigger picture. This allows for greater multi-scale analysis of comet activity.

This campaign followed on from campaigns in support of the Halley-related and Deep Impact Missions, as well as general comet observing campaigns such as for Comet C/2012 S1 ISON. 

With 67P coming back shortly, and future comet missions such as Comet Interceptor being planned, there is an opportunity to consider the effectiveness of the 67P amateur campaign, a related 46P/Wirtanen schools’ observing campaign, and draw lessons from these and previous comet and other Pro-Am campaigns to inform good practice for future campaigns.

Feedback has been sought, via 3 surveys, from those who took part in the 67P and 46P campaigns, and from amateur astronomers who might be encouraged to take part in future campaigns. The survey results will be presented, along with reflections from some of amateurs involved, and a discussion of how future campaigns may be made most effective.