Types of astronomers?

Question

ok so I am going to go into the field of astronomy when I get to college but I can't find the different types of astronomers. Does anyone know what types there are?

Answer 1

Professional and amateur.

Professionals get paid to lounge around drinking coffee while machines do all their work for them.

Amateurs become experts because they do the work themselves.

Answer 2

You have some odd interpretations of your question in the preceding answers.

Astronomers fall into different types based on several criteria.

First there theoretical, observational and laboratory astro.

theorists use physics to try to understand the universe.

observers use observations from telescopes etc to understand the universe

laboratory people do experiments in labs to try replicate pieces of what happens in space.

However, most theorists are developing hypotheses based on observations, most observers use theories to understand what they see, and lab people use both theory and observations to guide their experiments

Then we get into wavelength/frequency space.

Many observational astronomer concentrate on a particular region of the spectrum. As an example, I am an infrared astronomer, so obtain and use infrared observations. I do not get into X-ray or ultraviolet observations very often.

Then there's the type of astronomical environments/objects people study. Cosmologists study the early universe and structure of the universe; planetary scientists study planets; stellar astrophysicists study stars - although this then usually gets subdivided into low mass vs high mass stars and into young vs. old stars etc etc.

If you are really interested in going into a career in astronomy, take physics at college and do electives in astro. You need to understand the physics to understand the astronomy. Also make sure you do some computer programing - it's very important in astronomy.

One of the previous answers got into the sorts of jobs astronomers do - I can add more if that's what you want to know...

Answer 3

There are those who specialize in astrophysics, planetary astronomers, radio astronomers.

Check out these links:

http://www.unixl.com/dir/physical_scienc...

http://jobs.myspace.com/a/ms-jobs/list/q...

http://members.aas.org/JobReg/JobRegiste...

http://www.phys-astro.sonoma.edu/advisor...

Answer 4

Know up front that this career is a labour of love and not a money making endeavour. Astronomers do not make piles of money. But if "astronomy"  is where your passion is, then be assured that  it will reward and enrich in ways money cannot.

There are several subdivisions in the discipline:

Cosmology: heavy on the physics and math

Astro-physics: obviously heavy on physics

Astro-biology: this will be big in the future -- we hope. Studying other life forms would (needless to say) be incredibly exciting work.

Astronomy: looking through a telescope is rarely done by professionals anymore. This is the work for amateurs, and unlike most other Sciences, the work of amateurs is vital to the whole discipline!

Teaching: There will always be a need for astronomy teachers, and in fact, this is often what many astronomers end up doing.

Good luck

Answer 5

There are radio astronomers, light gathering astronomers and infrared astronomers but they are all astronomy... Physics is probably the best route in but that requires deep math and at least some insanity so good luck..

Oh and there is also quantum physics which is probably where the future of science lies but it requires lots of insanity...