Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Mon, 09/08/2014 - 22:08

AAVSO CHAT

Our AAVSO Chat room  was just brought back on line by Doc after a few days of being off line.  

For those of you with an interest, we do have a Chat room for folks.  Attendance varies all over the place and typically has about four to six folks signed in.    It can be a great place to ask questions, meet other observers and compare notes; sometimes there are only one or two folks signed in and while infrequent we have had as many as up to 20 folks.  Arne is a frequent visitor, time permitting.

If you decide to check it out please don’t give up if you do not see anyone else on chat at that moment.  Usually some folks will show up sooner or later (some of the folks live in other countries and therefore the time zones can vary quite a bit).  Also jump in or start a discussion; do not be bashful.  While Variable Stars and Astronomy are frequent topics there are really no limitations (heck, some of us occasionally even talk about our pets- although it is probably best to avoid politics); oh, you can also start a private chat with anyone signed in.  

It has been my experience through the years with chat that it is a comfy place to compare notes with others observing at or near the same time as yourself.,  Also, at other times it is just a nice place to talk with folks who share our common interest.

Stop by sometime and check it out.

To learn about CHAT and for a quick access please visit:

http://www.aavso.org/chat

Click on the – using this link – within the Mibbit Web Client Paragraph, near the top of the page.

All you have to do is Choose a Name for the white box (Most of us tend to sign in with part of our name and our observer initials.  In my case, I sign in as TimCTX) and click on Connect.
(see the bottom of this for how to change when signed in)

If you have Firefox then you can download, for easy access,  the add on:  ChatZilla

Then when you open Chatzilla, click on the ChatZilla Tab and select: Preferences
Select Global  settings then the Startup Tab and look at the bottom where it says locations.
Click the add box and enter the following:
Irc://irc.aavso.org/AAVSO
Click Apply then OK and exit.  Restart ChatZilla and you should be on the AAVSO Chat.
(at least the above instructions

Oh, to sign in or change your sign in use the following, regardless of how you accessed:

/nick (name)

In my case this looks like:
/nick TimCTX
And if I am leaving but wanting to stay around so I can read any discussions I then enter:
/nick TimCTX_Away
When you  want to completely quit enter:
/quit

Ad Astra,

Tim Crawford, CTX