Up on the roof Droege's own Mark IV will go on the roof of a special extension added to his home. He is revelling in doing science without the politics, bickering and hassles that go with doing research the conventional way. But then we added bricks and mortar, fees and so on, and all these things got in the way of pure scholarship. What we've done is re-create that original association of scholars. I'm more proud of the way I put together the collaboration than any of the equipment.
Amateur astronomers work for the fun of it.
They don't need to get funding from the government, or publish enough papers to be granted tenure. As a result, they are in many cases much more willing to work together as a team, selflessly, than professional astronomers. Take the way the results from the project are distributed freely over the Internet. Droege has always insisted that the results should be available to everyone. When it comes to listing the advantages of the TASS way of working, Droege is positively evangelical.