  Citizen science refers to scientific research conducted or participated by
non-professional scientists (such as hobbyists or members from the general
public). Citizen astronomy is a classic example of citizen science. Citizen
astronomers has benefited from technological advancements in the recent decades
as they fill the scientific gaps left by professional astronomers, in the areas
such as time domain observations, visual classification and data mining.
Chinese citizen astronomers have made a visible contribution in the discoveries
of new objects; however, comparing to their counterparts in the western world,
they appear to be less interested in researches that do not involve making new
discovery, such as visual classification, long-term monitoring of objects, and
data mining. From a questionnaire survey that aimed to investigate the
motivation of Chinese citizen astronomers, we find that this population is
predominantly male ($92\%$) who mostly reside in economically developed
provinces. A large fraction ($69\%$) of the respondents are students and young
professionals younger than the age of 25, which differs significantly from the
occupation and age distribution of typical Chinese Internet users as well as
the user distribution of large international citizen science projects such as
the Galaxy Zoo. This suggests that youth generation in China is more willing to
participate citizen astronomy research than average generation. Additionally,
we find that interests in astronomy, desire to learn new knowledges, have a fun
experience and meet new friends in the community are all important driving
factors for Chinese citizen astronomers to participate research. This also
differs from their counterparts in western countries. (full abstract in PDF)
