The United Nations has officially declared 2009 to be the International Year of Astronomy. The United States IYA Program Committee has created a Research Experiences for Students, Teachers and Citizen Science working group to design IYA activities around citizen science and pro-am collaboration. The AAVSO is the hosting organization for the working group. If you would like to participate, submit ideas or have questions e-mail aavso@aavso.org and it will be directed to the working group.

The IYA 2009 working group's main project is a multi-year effort involving variable stars. The project will begin with training programs of several types of binary and transient variable stars that are easy to observe from suburban locations with the naked eye. Eventually it will lead to a capstone project: monitoring the rare and mysterious 2009-2010 eclipse of Epsilon Aurigae. In the summer of IYA 2009, third-magnitude Eps Aur will experience its next eclipse, which occurs every 27.1 years and lasts 714 days, nearly two years! Projects will be developed for three audiences: amateurs, the general public and educators. Planning is still underway; advice and offers to help are welcome.

Other projects are also being considered. Please send us ideas or offers to help. No project idea is too small. It can be something as small as having a research symposium at your local club.

If you are a professional astronomer and have a project you need help on (either through observing, data mining, E/PO, etc.) please contact us. Perhaps we can create an IYA project tailored for your needs.

Click here to view the poster paper presented at the January, 2007 AAS meeting summarizing current plans.

More info will be placed here in the coming months. Stay tuned!

Members of the Research Experiences for Students, Teachers and Citizen Science working group:

• Dr. Chris De Pree (US Program Committee member): Agnes Scott College
• Dr. Lucy Fortson: Adler Planetarium
• Mark Hartman: MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research
• Suzanne H. Jacoby: LSST
• Dr. J. C. Lochner: CRESST/USRA/NASA-GSFC
• Dr. Brian Mendez: University of California, Berkeley
• Aaron Price (Chair, US. Program Committee member): AAVSO & Tufts University
• Jordan Raddick: Johns Hopkins/SDSS
• Dr. Robert Stencel (Scientific Advisor): University of Denver
• Ryan Wyatt: California Academy of Sciences

For more IYA info, and to find information about the committee in your country, visit http://www.astronomy2009.org/.