Route de la belle Etoile (Route of the Beautiful Star)

‘Many professional astronomers were once amateurs. The latter often leads to the former. But there is a gossamer thread between them, itʼs the subject of this book, a sort of grey zone of possibility where an amateursʼ reach can exceed their grasp.’

The night sky is vast. Professional astronomers have never had the resources to chart the heavens completely alone. Amateurs have long filled in the cracks. Homer met with and photographed amateur astronomers and their observatories in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, India and the UK. The book includes some of the most prolific citizen scientists such as Canadian Jack Newton—whose efforts in search of the Progenitor of Type Ib Supernova 2010O in Arp 299 led to him being granted time as an investigator on the Hubble Space Telescope, and Dave Gault, who in collaboration with fellow Australian amateur Peter Nosworthy, discovered a moon around asteroid “(172376) 2002 YE25”. At the end of the book are field notes detailing these discoveries and a series of ‘star glass’ images—created by women at Harvard College Observatory who measured and catalogued stars by annotating astronomical glass plate negatives by hand.

‘I am no astronomer, it must be said, but my interest runs deep. When I was a child, my grandfather would hoist me atop his shoulders, point upwards and name the constellations. I was too young then, to now recall much else of him. So, I have this single early image in my mind, more like a photograph than a memory.’