Whither the astronomy hobby

For years, astronomy enthusiasts have noticed the graying of our hobby. As with other serious fields, amateur astronomy meetings and star parties over the past decade have trended toward an older crowd, with largely the same faces showing up at the same events.

Where are the young people? This question echoes throughout the chambers of astronomy clubs and star party organizers across the United States and the world. On p. 61, two enthusiastic

amateur astronomers — Kevin Ritschel and Maria Grusauskas, one veteran and one youngster — ask, “Where is amateur astronomy going?” Their commentary will no doubt provide you with some intriguing thoughts.

The amateur astronomy hobby hasn’t necessarily gone anywhere, but like other areas of interest, it’s in the midst of dramatic, whirlwind change. The print circulation of Astronomy has held relatively steady at about 100,000, keeping it the most-read astronomy magazine in the world — a title it has held since 1981. Our website attracts about 400,000 unique visitors per month. On Twitter, we have 65,000 followers. Our Facebook following has grown to 1.16 million. So altogether we have the largest audience of astronomy enthusiasts on Earth.

The notion about young people disappearing from amateur astronomy is a false one. It’s true that far fewer people in their teens, 20s, and 30s are going to astronomy club meetings or even to star parties compared with a generation ago, when I was young. But that’s not to say they aren’t sampling and involving astronomy, space, and the cosmos in their lives. Most are doing it in very different ways.

It’s become harder for most people to access a dark sky. Many in society now look through the viewfinder of a smartphone rather than pulling a book off a shelf and reading it. So for many people, the depth of interest has dramatically changed. For lots of folks, it’s enough to hear a bit about their favorite subject on TV for a halfhour or maybe more every week. End of story.

But astronomy, cosmology, and planetary science are in the midst of a modern renaissance. The past generation has witnessed an explosion of knowledge about the biggest cosmic questions humans have posed for millennia.

The astronomy hobby is no fad. It offers a deep and abiding way to know the meaning of it all around you, and perhaps even why you’re here on this planet in an ordinary solar system inside one of 100 billion galaxies we know about.

The way amateur astronomy gets practiced, and the way people participate in it, is in rapid change. But human understanding and appreciation of the universe is not going anywhere. Not just yet.