Astronomy communities

Recently, I went to Spain for the eclipse and stayed in some shared accomodation with a bunch of people who regularly photograph the sky and who have taken some very, very impressive pictures.

But while chatting with them over the couple of days I realised that their astronomical worlds and mine had remarkably little crossover. None appeared to be BAA members and one didn’t even appear to be aware of it – which I found kind of shocking. Yes, we all liked clear dark skies and getting outside under the stars, and were happy to chat telescopes, but there seemed to be a community of observers with no interest in, nor reason to associate with us – which is a shame, though hardly the end of the world.

Even so, I have been trying to fathom out how this comes about. Is it the case that many are solely centred on the aesthetics of the imagery rather than what is represented and so can find all the community and advice they need in Stargazers Lounge/Cloudy Nights/Astrobin/youtube? Is it that the internet is now so dominant as a force that the BAA is marginalised by search algorithms for reducing advert clicks or is it that I am just a stupid old man shouting at clouds?

This had me thinking and I wondered what others think.

However, I do see one possible ray of hope. In this world, with AI on the rise and Cory Doctrow’s graphic description of what is happening to the web becoming so apposite (some image processing suites now use techniques that employ prior knowledge of the target to “enhance” the image), I wonder how long it will be before some of these sites become so burdened and polluted by AI agents that some are rendered nearly unusable by company generated “characters” slyly promoting their equipment and no longer something you can rely on as sources of personal “hands on” experience.

Will the BAA end up seeing a resurgence as other sites become increasingly untrustworthy?