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Anyone have a description or pictures of some of the setups these "professional amateurs" have? I'm sure some of them run well over $100,000.

I was fortunate enough to live during my high school years in the small Ohio town where Leslie Peltier lived. Peltier was at the time arguably the most famous amateur astronomer in the world. He had written one of the classic books on amateur astronomy, "Starlight Nights", and in his lifetime he discovered 12 comets, six novae, and made over 130,000 variable star observations.

As a young man he hand-built the unique Merry-Go-Round Observatory which he used countless times to make many of his discoveries:

By the time I came to know him (late 70's), he had built a much larger, more traditional domed observatory to house a larger telescope (the above photo appears to have been taken from within the domed observatory).

It was through Peltier's telescope that I first saw the spectacle of the shadows of the mountains on the Moon along the terminator of the half-moon. I fondly remember eating fresh apples from one of the trees in his yard as a friend and I gazed up into the skies.

I'm not sure how much his setup cost in total. Surely the original "merry-go-round" observatory from which he made many of his discoveries was built at minimal cost, so it doesn't take a fortune to become a successful amateur astronomer. His larger observatory, of course, cost a reasonably substantial amount.

Oh, you LUCKY DOG! :-) I've heard of Peltier before and have browsed through his "Starlight Nights."

With these telescopes he independently discovered twelve comets and six novae and made over 130,000 variable star observations.

Wow, that's a very, very serious amateur! 130,000 variable star observations translates to around ten a night for 40 years. I wonder how many potentially serious amateurs today are frittering away their nights on the internet instead of observing? You'd think Al Gore would be ashamed to show his face in public. ;-)

Back in the 80's I read a story about Japan's top amateur comet hunter. IIRC, the guy actually lived in Tokyo! I can't imagine doing any serious astronomy with that much light pollution around me. But he had spent a small fortune on his observatory and there was no way you could argue with his accomplishments in amateur astronomy.

He also had an amazing pair of binoculars that he had spent many, many thousands of dollars on, and that he used to scan the sky every night. I can't remember exactly how much he paid for them, but it blew me away when I read about them. I didn't know such things existed . . . But they definitely put my 11x80s to shame. Anyway, if he found anything of interest, he'd go straight to the telescope to check it out. If not, he'd fall back on his regular systematic searching, shooting pictures all night.

Interesting story on Peltier.

Here's an 8'diameter homemade obsveratory. He used red lights outside as it's doesn't affect your night vision.....This is similar to what I am currently building......

FYI, just searched Google for "Tetuo Kudo," the Japanese amateur mentioned in this article and he uses 20 x 120 binoculars. Amazing to me that binoculars would play any role at all in modern astronomy, amateur or no.

His larger observatory, of course, cost a reasonably substantial amount.

Dan,
Leslie's larger observatory (which now no longer stands having long decayed from neglect) was donated to him from Miami University of Ohio when one of his sons was attending there. The instrument was a fine 12" Clark refractor. When Leslie died in 1980, the story goes, one of his sons removed the 12" objective lens, and that's the last anyone's heard of it. If this is incorrect, I'm sure a certain lurker here will correct me!