The documents regarding data rights for amateur astronomers only offer US amateurs the option of obtaining data rights under certain circumstances. Does this mean that I, as an amateur from Germany, am excluded?
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Hi @adoppler, thanks for this question.
As I also understand the Rubin Data Policy (RDO-013), there is only a path to Rubin data rights for amateur astronomers in the United States (in DPOL-401, which defines the “US Scientist” data rights holder).
However, this does not mean non-US amateur astronomers are excluded from doing science with Rubin data. Even within the US it is expected to be a rare case that an amateur astronomer needs Rubin data rights, for the following reasons: some datasets are publicly available and do not require data rights to access or analyze (e.g., alerts via brokers, moving objects via the MPC); proprietary periods on non-public data are only 2 years; and collaboration and co-authorship between those with and without data rights is allowed by the Data Policy.
This page of resources for amateur astronomers was recently added to Rubin’s For Scientist website, hopefully it’s useful to you? Happy to answer any further questions or hear more about the science you’re planning to do with Rubin data.
Thanks Melissa for the clarification.