Executive Committee WG Professional-Amateur Relations in Astronomy

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Resources

NASA-IPAC Teacher Archive Research Program (NITARP) – Partners teachers with a professional astronomer mentor to engage in authentic astronomical research. High school students often join in the effort as well. While there are differences, there are also significant similarities between NITARP and what the Pro-Am group hopes to achieve. In addition, there are some great resources that could support training and engagement by amateur astronomers.
Afterglow Access Software (AgA)- a complete (and free) browser-based astronomy image and data analysis software tool. The software is also designed to work with screen readers and incorporates unique features that allow the user to experience images through sound, making astronomy more accessible to the blind and visually impaired (BVI).
AstroImageJ (AIJ) - AIJ is an interactive, easy-to-use research-grade image analysis software. AIJ is built on ImageJ, which is used extensively in the field of biology and bioinformatics. The ‘astro’ edition of ImageJ has added to it many astronomy-specific data reduction, analysis, modeling and plotting capabilities.
OAO-JWST Image Processing Workshop - This workshop discusses the process of producing an astronomical image, from data collection at the telescope to press release. This workshop will provide viewers with a tangible avenue to utilise real space telescope data, as well as gain an appreciation for the work that image processing teams do to create the beautiful images we see from space telescopes like JWST.

Reports

Annual WG Report (2021) - Professional-Amateur Relations in Astronomy
Pro-Amateur Collaboration in Astronomy- Between December 2021 and February 2022, the pro-am WG conducted a survey of amateur astronomers to find out what they want from the IAU. The survey had several thousand responses, and the results are summarized in the document presented by Tim Spuck at the General Assembly in Busan, Korea, in August 2022.

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