For amateur astronomers these are the best of times and the worst of times. Never have such large and sophisticated telescopes and such powerful accessories been so readily available at moderate prices. Never has so much celestial information been available at the flip of a page or click of a mouse. But never have so many people lived under such awful skies. Many Sky & Telescope readers can follow the motion of Pluto in 3000 A.D. on a screen, but cannot step outdoors and find Polaris through the light pollution.

This paradox will grow ever more extreme as equipment improves and dark skies retreat. The future of amateur astronomy is, perhaps, a microcosm of the rest of the world's future: better technology in a poorer environment.

Which of these two trends will outrun the other and become dominant is anyone's guess, in amateur astronomy as in the larger world. One result, however, is already becoming clear. The environment is public — but equipment ownership is private. The stars belong to everyone, but access to them is becoming privatized. Many once-common celestial sights already require expensive instruments or the money and time to travel to distant, unspoiled locations.

No matter what the future holds, however, some observers will never let anything stop them.

These are people who set up telescopes in city lots and observe with blankets draped over their heads to block streetlights, while keeping an ear out for muggers. These are people who spend a year examining bleary star images through an apartment window and come away with a sheaf of variable-star light curves. These are people who time the instants when stars are occulted by skyscraper walls and determine the rate of precession of the Earth's axis.

"Normal" observers who have (or travel to) decent skies tend to regard such enthusiasts as crankish inhabitants of an unimportant amateur-astronomy backwater. They are wrong. As the world grows more densely populated, urbanized, and brightly lit, city observers are the vanguard exploring trails to our future.