High School Teacher. Salary: $55,000 or less

You went through ten years of school and haven't gotten a solid job yet, but you needed to start making money now. So you figured you would swallow your pride and teach some kids the wonders of the universe, space, and time. They'll never appreciate it like you do.

Planetarium Astronomer. Salary: $75,000

You work at a museum, narrating the planetarium light show some days and doing some research whenever the museum can scrounge up a few pennies for your space observations. It's not bad. Though you're getting pretty tired of telling tourists the same facts about space over and over and over and over and over and over....

Astronomy Professor. Salary: $86,000

You're certainly not teaching uninterested kids here...you're teaching semi-interested adults. You are able to create curriculum about the more complicated astronomy concepts and hear the wonderfully-naive observations of your students. And, when you're not teaching/grading papers/holding office hours/writing tests, you're doing your own personal research with a team of scientists the school has hired.

Astronomer for Scientific Research & Development. Salary: $114,000

You don't take orders...not really, anyway. You work in a team and conduct all the experiments your little heart desires. You create experiments, analyze the data, operate some fun and fancy equipment in your lab, and make up a bunch of theories. You're a real scientist.

Astronomer at NASA. Salary: $133,000

You've hit the big time now. NASA needs you. You are their go-to-person for any navigation/space flight problems and satellite communication issues. They could just sit and watch you observe and collect data all day. You're the reason we can get robots on Mars. Not bad.