I know several amateur astronomers who do great work, but are always raving about the new big-bang break-throughs in the media. I usually just direct the conversation to what kind of pictures and data they’ve been gathering recently. I would like to be able to recommend some astronomy tools that will help them think critically about what they see – and actually relate it to various cosmological theories they’ve been reading throughout their lives. It’s been said in the BBNH that observing astronomers came under heavy pressure from theoreticians. If the nature of the universe is at all apparent through the eye of a telescope, then that pressure should still be felt.
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