Astronomers

Late to the party but hopefully I'll be able to get used to this.

Starting off, we were asked to talk about what we think an astronomer does when we started off this quarter. This post may be a little late, but I'll use my mindset from January.
From what I knew on the topic, I figured that an astronomer was responsible for the identification and categorization of the entire night sky. This would involve observing each item able to be observed as well as being able to distinguish its individual features from other objects in the sky so as to not confuse things like a single star and a galaxy. Even with all the time we have spent watching the sky as a species, there are enough things in the night sky that still need observance or reevaluation.
Since technologies have become more and more refined, and with the placement of telescopes in space, our ability to distinguish bodies in the night sky has improved dramatically. This allowed for the discovery of exoplanets, different types of stars, the timeline of the life of a star, distances more vast then anticipated, as well as our position and level of uniqueness in this vast universe. Through more observation I figured with current technologies, it would just be a matter of time before the universe was categorized for the most part and that not many more advancements were needed in the field of observation. An improper thought in the field of physics; the idea that we are close to done. 
It is interesting to think that not too long ago (over written history) we believed that our Milky Way galaxy was believed to be the entire observable universe.
Through what I've learned from the course thus far, I know more about how much telescopes have improved over the last decade as well as how they can improve even more so in the future. With this improvement however, there are still objects out there that are still extremely difficult to observe due to the distances they are from us and the amount of photons we receive from them being such a small amount. I've also learned how important the different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum are for determining features of distant objects from temperature to composition.
I am still curious about the creation of new stars from supernova of older stars. Since heavy elements are made throughout the lifetime of a star, and even heavier elements through supernova, I wonder what happens to those elements in the ejected cloud and whether they always end up in planets or asteroids, or can end up just becoming a cloud of atoms. Or are their cases where the heavier elements will end up in a star and stop it from reaching a point where it can reach fusion levels by interacting with the hydrogen to make new compounds.