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Amateur astronomers often look at the sky using nothing more than their eyes, but common tools for amateur astronomy include portable telescopes and binoculars.
Unlike professional astronomy, scientific research is not typically the main goal for most amateur astronomers. Work of scientific merit is certainly possible, however, and many amateurs contribute to the knowledge base of professional astronomers very succesfully. Astronomy is often promoted as one of the few remaining sciences for which amateurs can still contribute useful data.
In particular, amateur astronomers often contribute towards activities such as monitoring the brightness changes of variable stars, helping to track asteroids, and observing occultations to determine both the shape of asteroids and the shape of the terrain on the edge of the Moon.
In the past and present, amateur astronomers have also played a major role in discovering new comets. Recently however, funding of projects such as the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research and Near Earth Asteroid Tracking projects has meant that most comets are now discovered by automated systems, long before it is possible for amateurs to see them.
There are a large number of amateur astronomical societies around the world that serve as a meeting point for those interested in amateur astronomy, whether they be people who are actively interested in observing or "armchair astronomers" who may be simply interested in the topic. Societies range widely in their goals, depending on a variety of factors such as geographic spread, local circumstances, size and membership. For instance, a local society in the middle of a large city may have regular meetings with speakers, focusing less on observing the night sky if the membership is less able to observe due to factors such as light pollution.
It is common for local societies to hold regular meetings, which may include activities such as star parties. Other activities could include amateur telescope making, which was pioneered in America by Russell W. Porter, who later played a major role in design and construction of the Hale Telescope.
Amateur telescopes come in many shapes and sizes, both commercial and home-built. The preferences of people who use them often differ.
Some amateur astronomers prefer to learn the sky as accurately as they can, using maps to find their way between the stars. In this case a common approach is to use binoculars or a manually driven telescope, combined with star maps, to locate items of interest in the sky. The normal technique for doing this, by locating landmark stars and "hopping" between them, is called star hoppingStar hopping is a technique that is often used by amateur astronomers to locate items of interest in the night sky. Most celestial objects of interest are not visible without instruments such as telescopes or binoculars. Unfortunately telescopes and binoc.
More recently as technology has improved and prices have come down, automated "GOTO" telescopes have also become a popular choice. With these computer-driven telescopes, the user typically enters the name of the item they wish to look at, and the telescope finds it in the sky automatically with comparatively little further effort required by the user.
The main advantage of a "GOTO" telescope for an experienced amateur astronomer is the reduction of "wasted" time that may have otherwise been used in trying to find a particular object. This time can therefore be used more effectively for studying the object.