Sky & Telescope February 1989 [antikvár]

FOCAL POINTTurning Pro: The Good, the Bad, and the UglyAmateur and professional astrono-. mers share a deep love for the beauty and majesty of the night sky. But contrary to what many amateurs believe, their worlds are very different.Not all professionals began their careers building telescopes, observing from their backyards, frequenting star parties, or memorizing celestial minutiae just for the fun of it. A few of my colleagues insist with a certain demented pride that they have never even looked through a telescope!My own journey began with a childhood interest in dinosaurs, rocks, and insects. In the early 1960's I became fascinated by the images of galaxies and nebulae on the science-fiction TV series "Outer Limits." Soon I was collecting astronomical photographs Uke baseball cards, and before long 1 had built my first telescope and organized a high school astronomy club.My college years at Berkeley were some of the best I would spend as a student; an idyllic time when I learned the basic principles of physics and mathematics between Fris-bee matches and lunchtime raps with friends on the campus lawns. After a thousand classroom hours and hundreds of homework problems, 1 was struck by the elegance of the rules that matter and radiation obey.By my junior year, I took great delight in astronomy's obsession with detailed theories and complex scaffoldings of evidence and interpretation. The study of the universe was transformed from poetry and "gee whiz" to just another branch of physics and mathematics. I thrived on this stuff and knew 1 was hooked for life!But to become a pro I first had to get into graduate school. Tension City. Like everyone else who wanted in, I applied to half a dozen universities at $25 to $50 a shot. Then I waited anxiously for months for what, in the end, was good news.Graduate school at Harvard was the acid test, a time for confronting my strengths and limitations as a would-be astronomer. 1 took advanced courses in such topics as stellar evolution, galactic structure, and cosmology. And I spentlong hours doing homework problems whose results a few decades ago would probably have been worth publishing in professional journals. In graduate school they were only worth 10 points apiece!By my second year pressure began to mount to find a dissertation topic, some problem at the astronomical frontier to which 1 might make a contribution. I had always thought of myself as a Renaissanceman, and now I had to commit myself to only one subject. With the entire universe beckoning, I found this a nerve-wracking exercise.Some students seemed to have no problem specializing. But my friends and I agonized over which research problems really interested us, and over whether we were capable of tackling them.Advice from faculty members was crucial in helping us find projects that could be completed in a reasonable amount of time. ("That study of quasar variability you're thinking of would take 10 years!") It's unwise to enter graduate school with a stubborn idea about what kind of work you want to do.As ardently as we try to get into graduate school, we work even more furiously to get out. Who wants to eke out a marginal existence on $6,000 a year in teaching assistantships or research grantswhile your college buddies are earning hefty salaries on Wall Street? Of the 150 people who undertake to get a Ph.D. in astronomy each year, half drop out along the way. The rest of us take about six years to wrap up the degree.Then, along with about 70 other new astronomers in their late 20's, we look for a job.Today nearly 250 Ph.D.-level astronomy openings are advertised annually in the United States. But lots of them are sought by some of the country's 3,500 other professional astronomers, whose experience gives them a leg up. About 50 of those jobs are professorships beyond the reach of freshly minted graduates. And many of the others are outside any one person's specialty.Most new Ph.D.'s end up with a one- or two-year postdoctoral appointment at a university, observatory, or research laboratory. Single, mobile postdocs willing to live in a tent have a distinct advantage when competing for such positions, which carry a median salary of around $24,000 per year. Chances are the young bachelor of physics working in your lab earns about the same amount without the six years of sweat for a Ph.D.I suppose that if you want to know the secrets of the universe, it's only fair to have to sacrifice a bit for the privilege. Getting through college and graduate school may be a real challenge, and the tangible rewards may be few, but many astronomers, myself included, feel compelled to stick with it for reasons that have little to do with mundane concerns like where our next meal is coming from.My own compulsion grew from a seed of curiosity planted in childhood while standing outside on a cold night gazing at the stars. Now I spend my days trying to figure out what's going on inside all manner of astrophysical systems. Amazingly, when I go outside at night and look skyward, the sense of wonder remains.STEN ODENWALDThe author earned his Ph.D. in !982 with a study of the galactic center at infrared wavelengths. He is now an astronomer at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D. C.Focal Point invites contributions from readers who wish to comment on contemporary issues in astronomy and space science.124 Sky & Telescope, February, 1989