Chelen Johnson
My general impression is how big and varied the whole conference was. I knew the number coming in—but sometimes our imagination fails us. To see all the posters, papers, booths, and talks was truly astonishing.
Real astronomy isn’t just looking through telescopes with the naked eye anymore. It is really being accurate and precise and a lot of computer mathematics.
The more I talked with astronomers and support staff at the different booths [at my first AAS], the more I began to realize that being a teacher, and an amateur astronomer, is really very different from being a professional astronomer.
