Interestingly, when hunting on a computer or some new celestial object gets "hunted" by university astronomers, they call it "research" and don't smugly dismiss it as just some fun that can safely be gatekept from being called astronomy.

As always, when working outside the system, it should be expected that semantics will be used against you, but if it's your interest, it needn't stop you nor need care about such unpersuasive arguments.