[StAntKnee]

Operative words: amateur astronomer

Astronomers stunned.

Sorta makes you lose faith in the absolute certainty and trust in scientists on matters, say, like . . .

Global warming models with predictions a century out.

While ignoring solar events happening now.

[wordsofearnest]

Remember amateurs built the Ark, professionals the Titanic.

[stormer]

Astronomy (at least observational astronomy) is one of the few fields of science where amateurs continue to make significant contributions.

[Alberta's Child]

I was an amateur astronomer in my younger days, and there's a good reason why events like this are often sighted by amateurs long before professional astronomers see them.

Professional astronomers are typically dedicated to studying very specific things in space, and most of their time and energy is focused on those things. They don't usually have time to scan the heavens at random, looking for something unusual like this.

This is why, for example, most comets are discovered by (and named after) amateurs -- not professionals. The process of finding a comet in the night sky usually involves long, painstaking periods of time where an observer scans the night sky looking for something out of the ordinary -- like a small, blurry object in a constellation, that doesn't show up on sky charts. The best tools for this sort of thing are smaller telescopes with wide fields of vision -- because it would take forever to cover the entire night sky with one of those giant telescopes you see in an observatory.

[RobRoy]

It has been suggested that God put the planets around us the way he did to act as a “space crap” filter, basically pulling stuff in and taking the hit to keep things relatively clean for us.

So far, during recorded history, it’s pretty effective.