The need for Professional-Amateur collaborations in studies of Jupiter and Saturn

TL;DR

This paper emphasizes the importance of professional-amateur collaborations in ground-based observations of Jupiter and Saturn, highlighting how amateurs contribute to continuous monitoring, discovery of atmospheric phenomena, and supporting space missions.

Contribution

It presents examples of successful collaborations between professionals and amateurs, demonstrating their role in studying atmospheric variability and impact events on giant planets.

Findings

Amateurs can monitor atmospheric changes daily using small telescopes.

Continuous amateur observations have led to discoveries like impact fireballs on Jupiter.

Coordination enhances the scientific return of planetary studies and space missions.

Abstract

The observation of gaseous giant planets is of high scientific interest. Although they have been the targets of several spacecraft missions, there still remains a need for continuous ground-based observations. As their atmospheres present fast dynamic environments on various time scales, the availability of time at professional telescopes is neither uniform nor of sufficient duration to assess temporal changes. However, numerous amateurs with small telescopes (of 15-40 cm) and modern hardware and software equipment can monitor these changes daily (within the 360-900nm range). Amateurs are able to trace the structure and the evolution of atmospheric features, such as major planetary-scale disturbances, vortices, and storms. Their observations provide a continuous record and it is not uncommon to trigger professional observations in cases of important events, such as sudden onset of global changes, storms and celestial impacts. For example, the continuous amateur monitoring has led to the discovery of fireballs in Jupiter's atmosphere, providing information not only on Jupiter's gravitational influence but also on the properties and populations of the impactors. Photometric monitoring of stellar occultations by the planets can reveal spatial/temporal variability in their atmospheric structure. Therefore, co-ordination and communication between professionals and amateurs is important. We present examples of such collaborations that: (i) engage systematic multi-wavelength observations and databases, (ii) examine the variability of cloud features over timescales from days to decades, (iii) provide, by ground-based professional and amateur observations, the necessary spatial and temporal resolution of features that will be studied by the interplanetary mission Juno, (iv) investigate video observations of Jupiter to identify impacts of small objects, (v) carry out stellar-occultation campaigns.