Free Astronomy Magazine March-April 2020

53 riod between 1985 and 1995. The associations of amateur astronomers multiplied and the tel- escopes were sold like candies, so much so that numerous dealers of photographic material, to- tally deprived of astronomy-related knowledge, gained significant amounts by selling any tele- scope. Even astronomy magazines increased in number: it was possible to buy 4-5 or more of the same language at newsstands. To these magazines, the most assiduous (and least “spend-thrift”) readers could add others sold on the international market. The whole mechanism worked perfectly: the manufacturers and retailers of telescopes fi- nanced the magazines, which were the nursery of new customers of those same merchants. What should have been the primary purpose of these magazines, the dissemination of astron- omy, was in many cases relegated to the back- ground or, even worse, tailored to the target liked by the most influential advertisers. Luckily, at least until the end of the 1980s or a little beyond, almost all the content of the as- tronomy magazines were still the prerogative of expert popularizers who often had a remark- able practical knowledge of the sky. At that time, texts were even more important than im- ages, and “to be” was even more important than “to appear.” This scenario was overturned starting from the early 90s with the spread of CCD devices for astrophotographic use. In the world of tradi- tional amateurs, improvised astrophotographers began to infiltrate, which, just for being wealth- ier than others, could afford more expensive CCDs and computers, and therefore more spec- tacular images. Astronomy mag azines began to give more and more space to purely aesthetic works, sacrificing scientific information in many cases. Inevitably, the world of amateur astron- omy, having the magazines as an example and reference, followed the same evolution, produc- ing a quantity of astrophotographers expert in CCD sensors and image stacking, but often un- aware of the nature of what they were photo- graphing. The average amateur astronomer was no longer interested in collecting directly with CCDs arrive, a downward revolution