388 replies to this topic

[Phil Cowell]

The electronic eyepiece you mention is on the way. You’re right about what younger folks want.

One thing folks are missing is social media has replaced physical clubs. If they want to reach the younger generation then need to do it on their terms. Complaining about lack of the participation hasn’t done squat just alienated more young folks. Complaining about more red kit and less dobs shows a complete lack of understanding of their new target audience. The old days are gone for many reasons, sure there are a few who might be interested in the old ways but they are far from the majority. 
It’s not difficult, if folks want to attract more young folks to astronomy.
Don’t talk down to them it doesn’t work.

Find out what they’re into complaining about phones and social media, we’ll give up you’ve already lost them.

Learn how to communicate with the audience you want to attract on social media. Set up a presence online. You might get to attract folks that way. In all honesty you might get participation in star parties or special events but that’s probably it. If you do have star parties please try to contain the miserable sods complaining about the young, phones and how they should be doing things old school. You’ve lost any gain you made at that point.

EAA works well, Smart scopes work well and sharing the image captured. Planetary visual works well and bright deep sky. For most a faint smudge is a yawn. Better to use other methods of presentation.

You might attract a few the old traditional way but not enough to keep a club valid.

Threads complaining about why there is low interest is because a part from a few they no longer work. You need to meet them on their turf not try to force them into the old ways.

My guess is we’ll just keep getting threads complaining about why young folks aren’t interested.

 

People want to see what they see on the internet. I can produce deep sky items like that after 10 hours. And I can produce a planet after taking 100 fps videos and upscaling it.

 

If I show them a deep sky object in the eyepiece it looks like a grey puff at best. If I show them a planet in the eyepiece, its a fraction of the size they see on my astrobin.

 

Smart telescopes will help the casual audience get interested.

 

If they ever make an eyepiece that is sensitive to light and creates an image like we produce with long exposure cameras, there will be a revolution.

[Phil Cowell]

Your right it’s the older generation that need to change if they want to interest the young not the other way around.

 

I am a bit suprised how much attention this thread got, in the time I posted it. In no way did this meant to be intended as a bash against younger generations. Keep in mind the older generations raise the younger ones. I think there is a problem and I am curious if there are any suggestions on how to address it?

 

I do agree with your statements here. Where would I be w/o the technology, as that got me back into the hobby. This technology has given us the ability to taken hubble quality photos from the back yard of our house and where would I be w/o forums, youtube, and other resources? I think I would have quit in frustration a long time ago. Instead I am trying to do this hobby with my old man, who is 1200 miles away.

[rj144]

Well I'm an instructor at a university and I can tell you when I show my pics to the students they are instantly curious and want to know how to do astrophotography.  I'm trying to get a workshop or class going on astrophotography now.

[Phil Cowell]

Some of us are. Z80 and 6502 running on a Stratus dev system under CPM.

 

I wonder how many of today’s astrophotographers were once fluent in Assembler and Machine code. I remember when languages such as Fortran were viewed as modern and delusional…

/Chris

[VA3DSO]

Some of us are. Z80 and 6502 running on a Stratus dev system under CPM.

I still program in assembler on 6502's even today! I'm a top shelf programmer (I'm fluent in over 60 languages), but I'm a rubbish astrophotographer.

 

[Brain&Force]

We also need some better personalities on social media who can help younger people get into astronomy.

 

Look at the rise in popularity of golf recently among younger people.

We need our own Grant Horvat, Paige, Rick Shiels, Bryson, etc.  They make golf "cool," okay maybe not Rick so much.

 

Unfortunately our hobby is even nerdier than golf.

As much as I love Ed Ting and Astrobiscuit, there's not much chance that younger people are going to be influenced by their videos.

I can definitely tell you, as a member of the Astrobiscuit Discord server, that there are plenty of young people who have been inspired to get involved in astronomy through Astrobiscuit's channel! I can't say the same for Ed Ting's channel (mostly because he doesn't have a community Discord server as far as I know, though if it existed I'd join) but his name definitely comes up in Astrobiscuit's server.

 

There's definitely a social media divide: older people are on Facebook and there are plenty of great astronomy groups there (for instance, my local astronomy club and the RC owners' club) but younger people like me only have an account to stay in touch with friends and family or reconnect with people. Younger people are on Discord which has better potential for real time communication and collaboration (you could just stream an EAA session on a chat channel, for instance) but it's rare to find users over, say, 35, and it's essentially a walled garden. If a Discord server goes down, there's very little potential for its content to be archived, which is a huge loss for the community. Though I'd argue Facebook groups suffer the same problem - it's hard to search Facebook if you don't have an account.

 

I'm personally on Discord more often but have made a point of coming here because I trust corporate-owned social media less and less. Forums are cool. I like forums. I also like the fediverse. But if we want to reach out to broader audiences, we definitely have to leverage a wide variety of social media platforms as well as in-person outreach. 

[EPinNC]

Do you think now that we can go on sites like Cloudy Nights and learn from one another that it contributes to the feeling that we don't need to meet up in person ? Are we not as guilty as the current generation ? Just saying.

Those are interesting questions!

 

I wasn't meaning to comment on whether or not we need to meet in person to effectively share our interests.  I think this forum is a great way to interact with others with whom we may never get to meet face to face.  People clearly find great value in these sorts of interactions, myself included.  I will not, however, assert that it takes the place of in-person interaction.  In fact, I love talking to people first-hand and sharing my excitement with the wonders of the night sky.  (And with other natural phenomena as well -- I used to teach biology.)  This online forum can augment in-person interactions, not replace them.

 

I was only speculating about the potentially biased sample represented by this online group.  If the point of discussion here is whether there is a lack of interest in astronomy from younger generations, then we need to account for the fact that we are a self-assembled group, and we may have perceptions that are invalid.  There is a tendency in any specialized group of people to develop uneven perceptions of those who are not "just like us."  Those perceptions may not be well-supported.  There may be many, many young people who would share our interests to varying degrees, if given an opportunity.

 

Since many of us have a scientific perspective, we ought to know that we would need data showing that there really is a demographic problem before trying to diagnose its nature, causes, and potential solutions.  A few stories about how casual passersby are actually quite interested in what we are doing are useful, but those stories are really just anecdotal evidence.

 

I wonder about amateur astronomers in earlier years.  Did they also worry about younger people not showing interest as well?  Is all of this truly a new problem?

 

Thanks for making me think about all this!

 

Incidentally, I like Sketcher's comments (post #46) that came shortly after yours.

[TXLS99]

That wages have not even remotely kept up with prices is a well documented and accepted fact.

It doesnt matter if the wages have kept up or not. 

 

The FACT of the matter is that a vast majority of younger people are ABSOLUTELY FOOLISH with the money they do make.

 

Paying outrageous delivery prices for fast food and takeout is a poor financial decision no matter how much a person makes.... and yet millions of people do it over and over on a daily basis.

 

 

DoorDash alone received over 2 Billion orders in 2023

 

 

If the younger people are hurting so bad, then how do they afford to spend money on companys like this?  it sure aint the Boomers placing all these orders

Edited by TXLS99, 15 January 2025 - 07:41 PM.

[SrAstro]

Well I'm an instructor at a university and I can tell you when I show my pics to the students they are instantly curious and want to know how to do astrophotography.  I'm trying to get a workshop or class going on astrophotography now.

With my peers at least, they definitely "wow" at images I might show them and also ask the standard questions. Though, I've never had someone my age be legitimately curious about how to do what I do.

 

Time is a huge issue with this hobby, even I rarely find the time to observe or do much of anything. Nearly all my sky time is limited to clear weekends or when school is off, which is not very often.

 

In terms of pure interest though, it's certainly not totally lacking (When introduced to it). I've had some friends ask me for telescope recommendations because I'm the "space nerd" of the group. People are genuinely interested in what they're seeing in images. However, I've had the best response from my parents' coworkers (Ages 30-50, probably), they seem to be the most interested. Don't know if that means anything.

[CarolinaBanker]

It doesnt matter if the wages have kept up or not.

The FACT of the matter is that a vast majority of younger people are ABSOLUTELY FOOLISH with the money they do make.

Paying outrageous delivery prices for fast food and takeout is a poor financial decision no matter how much a person makes.... and yet millions of people do it over and over on a daily basis.


DoorDash alone received over 2 Billion orders in 2023


If the younger people are hurting so bad, then how do they afford to spend money on companys like this? it sure aint the Boomers placing all these orders

This is the sort of unhelpful intergenerational bashing that we’ve been trying to avoid.

[TXLS99]

This is the sort of unhelpful intergenerational bashing that we’ve been trying to avoid.

So its OK if they complain they arent being paid enough, but wrong for someone to point out their poor spending habits?

[Phil Cowell]

I’m in my late 60’s and use discord for astronomy, EAA and guitar. We’re not all Luddite’s  .

 

I can definitely tell you, as a member of the Astrobiscuit Discord server, that there are plenty of young people who have been inspired to get involved in astronomy through Astrobiscuit's channel! I can't say the same for Ed Ting's channel (mostly because he doesn't have a community Discord server as far as I know, though if it existed I'd join) but his name definitely comes up in Astrobiscuit's server.

 

There's definitely a social media divide: older people are on Facebook and there are plenty of great astronomy groups there (for instance, my local astronomy club and the RC owners' club) but younger people like me only have an account to stay in touch with friends and family or reconnect with people. Younger people are on Discord which has better potential for real time communication and collaboration (you could just stream an EAA session on a chat channel, for instance) but it's rare to find users over, say, 35, and it's essentially a walled garden. If a Discord server goes down, there's very little potential for its content to be archived, which is a huge loss for the community. Though I'd argue Facebook groups suffer the same problem - it's hard to search Facebook if you don't have an account.

 

I'm personally on Discord more often but have made a point of coming here because I trust corporate-owned social media less and less. Forums are cool. I like forums. I also like the fediverse. But if we want to reach out to broader audiences, we definitely have to leverage a wide variety of social media platforms as well as in-person outreach. 

[Phil Cowell]

It’s cheaper than owning a car if you live in a large city with good transportation infrastructure. Especially if you work remotely. No insurance to pay, no maintenance costs no license. A lot cheaper to use door dash. More folks are not paying into the old institutions like vehicle ownership or commuting to work.

 

It doesnt matter if the wages have kept up or not. 

 

The FACT of the matter is that a vast majority of younger people are ABSOLUTELY FOOLISH with the money they do make.

 

Paying outrageous delivery prices for fast food and takeout is a poor financial decision no matter how much a person makes.... and yet millions of people do it over and over on a daily basis.

 

 

DoorDash alone received over 2 Billion orders in 2023

 

 

If the younger people are hurting so bad, then how do they afford to spend money on companys like this?  it sure aint the Boomers placing all these orders

[dhop86]

I am not sure if people are disconnected from space due to light pollution

 

Getting into this hobby in my late 30's and up until recent I think I just didn't realize what I was missing out on as a result of light pollution. Having the chance to see the night sky from a dark sky location is what piqued my interest and opened my eyes to what light pollution has been depriving me of all this time. I think if the younger generation could be removed from their devices and light pollution, and given the chance to see and appreciate the real night sky that perhaps there would be more of an interest. Would be good for them to disconnect from technology once in a while anyway, so a win win for everyone.

[TXLS99]

It’s cheaper than owning a car if you live in a large city with good transportation infrastructure. Especially if you work remotely. No insurance to pay, no maintenance costs no license. A lot cheaper to use door dash. More folks are not paying into the old institutions like vehicle ownership or commuting to work.

Sure, thats absolutely true.  But how many of those people with no car, living in a large city paying for DoorDash are also not putting any money away for retirement, claiming "they cant afford it" ??  

 

Its even cheaper living in a large city with no car and making all your meals at home.

[Nankins]

As someone in their early 20s I can say not everything here is true.... Just try setting up a telescope or two and a sign in town, at a popular public place such as a sidewalk downtown or something like that (like some people here do), or on a college campus, and see who stops by.  When people aren't looking down at their phones, they notice things and will ask questions.  I would say light pollution is a big factor in my generation not being interested in looking up as much, but screen usage is a much bigger factor.  When doing pop-up solar observing sessions at my college campus I noticed that people were more likely to stop and look and ask questions when they were not looking at their phone - and those who weren't looking at their phone that didn't stop were more likely to give the telescope(s) a second look.  And many of those who come to our club's public outreach sessions are either parents with kids, younger couples, and now and then interested college kids who just heard about the event via social media or something else.   

 

The online pages and clubs can also be a good thing because people looking at their phone might see something, think it's interesting, and might come to an event, etc.  But the issue is definitely that they see those images, see the equipment, and don't realize that it costs a good amount of $$$ to get something like that.  For someone with a low budget, that can turn them off.  But also a lot of people see those images, think that it's going to look amazing through a telescope, and then get turned off by the views because the views were nothing like the images they saw online.  

 

Not all of us are bad with our money - some of us think twice before spending (albeit I'm not exactly one of those people...).  One way to get us younger people interested and keep us interested is to not only show us those images, but to out front let us know just how expensive the equipment and work put into those images is - I know that will turn many astrophotographer-wanna-bes away but if you can show someone who has never seen an astronomical object through a telescope what that object looks like visually, especially the bright ones like M57, then give them some information about the object and tell them that not only is visual astronomy generally cheaper than astrophotography, but that you can indeed see some of that grand detail in a few objects with your own eyes, then you might get more of us interested.  Or the opposite - show them something visually first and let them know how cheap doing that can be, that they don't need any astrophotography stuff to do astronomy - I have noticed outreach attendees get more excited when this is the case.  

 

Don't forget the online stuff - there's a few telescopes that are for commercial worldwide amateur use (radio telescope in Greece - forget the name but used it two or 3 times - for free) that are "online".  I use Slooh.com, which I know a few others here do.  That costs about $500 per year for a full membership with exclusive access to features that are not accessible to anyone else - including me and I have one of the lower level memberships.  That's the same amount that a small dob costs today with little to no accessories - and you get access a solar telescope, 2 20" telescopes, and a few other high-end scopes for the same price on Slooh.  Anyone who is interested can get a free one-month trial membership.  I think there are a few other good online telescope websites amateurs can use as well.  I do know that on Slooh a large number of the newer members are students like myself, either from colleges and universities or elementary schools - many of them do not have a telescope of their own (I personally know one other Slooh member who doesn't have a telescope).  So the online stuff isn't all bad - Slooh doesn't only have very high-end professional level equipment for about the same price as a small amateur dob, but has a Discord server and also "club workshops" within the website - and a public observation area that allows members to publicly post images and discussions and to comment and encourage each other, etc.  

[LoudounStargazer22]

It doesnt matter if the wages have kept up or not. 

 

The FACT of the matter is that a vast majority of younger people are ABSOLUTELY FOOLISH with the money they do make.

 

Paying outrageous delivery prices for fast food and takeout is a poor financial decision no matter how much a person makes.... and yet millions of people do it over and over on a daily basis.

 

 

DoorDash alone received over 2 Billion orders in 2023

 

 

If the younger people are hurting so bad, then how do they afford to spend money on companys like this?  it sure aint the Boomers placing all these orders

I had a whole post typed up as a response to this, but then I realized it's not worth arguing with someone that is willing to spout this weird boomer nonsense in a scientific forum. Go yell at a cloud, old man.

[Nankins]

It doesnt matter if the wages have kept up or not. 

 

The FACT of the matter is that a vast majority of younger people are ABSOLUTELY FOOLISH with the money they do make.

 

Paying outrageous delivery prices for fast food and takeout is a poor financial decision no matter how much a person makes.... and yet millions of people do it over and over on a daily basis.

 

 

DoorDash alone received over 2 Billion orders in 2023

 

 

If the younger people are hurting so bad, then how do they afford to spend money on companys like this?  it sure aint the Boomers placing all these orders

 

It's because many are too lazy to move around a lot or are too busy with college, university, kids, you name it.  Door Dash is now the No. 1 means of ordering food from the place I work at.  

 

In a way wages do matter a bit.  Workers being paid minimum wage, or close to it, often are fighting to make ends meet or have to spend much of their free money on groceries, gas, and other important things.  We will have to work a lot more to earn enough money to spend on expensive things like telescopes than someone who earns say $100 an hour (think insurance companies - I'm getting these numbers because of my job search last year).  

 

For instance, 10 years ago I could have bought my telescope and all the accessories I have now and saved probably at least $500 and added another telescope and maybe a tripod and a few other things.  The scope I have now cost less than/roughly $700 ten years ago (I was looking at prices and comparing them when I looked around a few years ago - found advertisements from 10 years ago for similar telescopes that cost a few hundred dollars less  back then).  I was a teenager without a job then, but making some money via 4-H animals.  Now I have a job, but I don't have enough money to spend on necessary items and another telescope and accessories unless it's one accessory that costs less than $150.  It will be a few years until I have enough money to do this at the rate I'm being paid right now.  So yes, wages do have an impact on how much we younger people are hurting.  We just spend too much money on things because we are at that age where busyness plus laziness often take over as we try to transition from having our parents to pretty much supporting ourselves.  

 

Also don't forget that people may not be interested in the same things as you at all.  Sure, going to an astronomy outreach event might be a fun occasional thing for some, but that doesn't mean they have a strong interest.  Young people may be interested in a wide variety of things, but choose to focus on the things they are most interested in, and for teenagers and college kids, that sort of thing often takes up most of their free time.  So just like you might have zero interest in computer science or something like that, and not want anything to do with it, someone else might have zero interest in astronomy and not really want anything to do with it.  Others just simply are too busy to take a moment and ask a question or look through a telescope.  

[archiebald]

All this talk of fast food and unnecessary delivery reminds me of something from a few years ago.

 

Many moons ago, I was in the habit of buying coffee from the vending machines in my company, then one day it dawned on me that based on the price of each cup, and the number I was drinking every day, I was drinking through nearly US$1,000 per year of unhealthy vending machine slop (based on prices from 15 years ago).

 

I dread to think what my daughter's annual Starbucks bill comes to.

 

The old saying of looking after the pennies still rings true.

Edited by archiebald, 15 January 2025 - 11:12 PM.

[Phil Cowell]

I think many young folks are doing fine. We might all be using door dash when the crops start to rot in the fields.

But what does the young using door dash have to do with astronomy?

 

Sure, thats absolutely true.  But how many of those people with no car, living in a large city paying for DoorDash are also not putting any money away for retirement, claiming "they cant afford it" ??  

 

Its even cheaper living in a large city with no car and making all your meals at home.

[archiebald]

I think many young folks are doing fine. We might all be using door dash when the crops start to rot in the fields.

But what does the young using door dash have to do with astronomy?

It's about learning how to manage your own money and not letting it dribble away on unhealthy, wasteful expenses, so you can hopefully put it to more constructive and rewarding use.  See my vending machine example above.

Edited by archiebald, 15 January 2025 - 11:14 PM.

[Phil Cowell]

That hasn’t happened since the Great Depression here in the states. Companies here used to provide pensions to employees. Maybe the area that needs looking at is not how employees use disposable income.

But again that’s nothing to do with astronomy.

It's about learning how to manage your own money and not letting it dribble away on unhealthy, wasteful expenses, so you can hopefully put it to more constructive and rewarding use.  See my vending machine example above.

[archiebald]

That hasn’t happened since the Great Depression here in the states. Companies here used to provide pensions to employees. Maybe the area that needs looking at is not how employees use disposable income.

But again that’s nothing to do with astronomy.

Based on the staggering levels of average personal debt in the western world including the USA, I'd say that learning how to manage money is extremely relevant.

 

And sorry if my point about looking after the pennies went over your head, but as I explained , a seemingly innocent purchase of vending machine coffee (even based on 15 year old prices) can easily translate into the price of a decent telescope over a year.  Imagine how much astronomy gear could be purchased for a year's worth of unnecessary and unhealthy food delivery and all the other non-essential crap that people have become brainwashed into thinking is normal. 

 

It's an expensive hobby, allocation of disposable income is entirely relevant.

Edited by archiebald, 16 January 2025 - 01:24 AM.

[Dave Mitsky]

The greying of amateur astronomy (and other technical hobbies) has been underway for well over a decade. 

An editorial on this topic appeared in Sky & Telescope a long time ago.

 

There's even a book about some aspects of the situation.

https://discover.lib...atalog/b6070777

[Phil Cowell]

The point didn’t go over my head it just wasn’t relevant. I’m retired and yes I saved but I also have several pensions provided by socially responsible companies.
Once again the point might have gone over your head but how a generation saves has nothing to do with astronomy. Unless you want to take the declining population into account. That’s going to mean a lot of high end glass going cheap to those entering the hobby after we oldies pop our clog's. Even less savings required..

 

Based on the staggering levels of average personal debt in the western world including the USA, I'd say that learning how to manage money is extremely relevant.

 

And sorry if my point about looking after the pennies went over your head, but as I explained , a seemingly innocent purchase of vending machine coffee (even based on 15 year old prices) can easily translate into the price of a decent telescope over a year.  Imagine how much astronomy gear could be purchased for a year's worth of unnecessary and unhealthy food delivery and all the other non-essential crap that people have become brainwashed into thinking is normal. 

 

It's an expensive hobby, allocation of disposable income is entirely relevant.

Edited by Phil Cowell, 16 January 2025 - 01:45 AM.