The abstracts of papers listed here are in the order they were received, not necessarily in the order they will be presented.

Casper H. Hossfield
"Rebecca's Magnetometer"
I describe a magnetometer I helped Rebecca Ragat build as a science fair project. Rebecca was a student at a school in Arkansas. She won awards at the regional fair, which qualified her to enter her magnetometer in the Arkansas State Fair. At the state fair she won two valuable awards. I also describe my experience as a judge at the Orange County regional science fair in Florida.

Dorrit Hoffleit
"New Hipparcos Variables in the Bright Star Catalogue"
The Hipparcos mission discovered 5655 variables of which 275 are common to the Bright Star Catalogue. Their distributions by type and amplitude are discussed. The amplitudes range from 0.01 to 0.51m, only seven of which have amplitudes in excess of 0.03m, and the maximum frequency is about 0.04m. Small wonder they had not been previously discovered. The seven of greatest amplitude include 2 EA, 2LB, and one each SRB, Gamma Cas, and Uvi types.

Aaron Price
"Strange Mystery: Strange Stars"
Quarks are the most stable form of matter known to exist, yet they are very difficult to observe on Earth. It is possible that there exists a class of star that is entirely made up of strange quarks, one which can be studied from Earth. These "strange stars" could be the source of major short-term flares, gamma ray bursts, and may be confused with neutron stars and black holes. Intriguing as it may sound, empirical evidence for these stars is slim. The interesting characteristics of these theoretical stars are discussed along with pros and cons about their existence.

Ronald E Zissell
"CE CAS, A Tale of Two Cepheids"
The Cepheid variable, CE Cas, is actually two cepheids separated by 2.5 arc-seconds i the open cluster NGC 7790. Point Spread Function CCD photometry resolves the light of each variable to produce the individual light curves.

Arto Oksanen
"Optical Gamma-ray Burst observations at Nyrola Observatory"
We present the results of observing five GRBs in 2000-2001 at Nyrola Observatory, Finland. The observed bursts are GRB 000926, GRB 010119, GRB 010222, GRB 010324 and GRB 010412. Of those in two cases optical afterglow was detected and one was measured with photometric filters showing definite fading. We also present the equipments used for the observations.

Barbara L. Welther
"Henrietta Leavitt and the Many Hats She Wore at HCO."
Henrietta Leavitt was one of the few people who were Charter Members of the AAVSO. This paper will first review some of the results of the research in photometry that she undertook at Harvard College Observatory (HCO) in the first two decades of the 20th century. Some of those results ultimately brought her to fame.

The paper will also review the part Miss Leavitt played in overseeing the research projects of some of the young women whom the Maria Mitchell Association supported as Pickering Fellows at HCO. Finally, it will briefly look at the part she played in the development of the AAVSO.

Brad Schaefer
"Do Recurrent Novae Become Type Ia Supernovae?"
Astrophysics has long had an important problem at identifying the progenitor systems of Type Ia supernovae, with a prominent possibility being Recurrent Novae (RN). RN (like U Sco and CI Aql) are binaries where mass is being poured onto a white dwarf near the Chandresekhar Mass. If the white dwarf is gaining mass over each eruption cycle, then it must inevitably become a supernova. But on average, the eruption might throw off more mass than is being accreted. With approximately known mass accretion rates, the question then becomes "How much mass is ejected during an eruption?" I have been timing eclipses of U Sco and CI Aql since 1987, so that I have very accurate orbital periods *before* their recent eruptions. Now I am measuring their orbital periods *after* the eruptions to determine the period change and hence the ejected mass. All together, this program will determine whether the white dwarfs in U Sco and CI Aql will become supernovae; and hence solve the old progenitor problem.

John Pazmino
"The Other Dark Sky"
The application of light abatement is often confined by 'showcase' or 'downtown' projects. In New York the eradication of luminous graffiti spread to the 'other' quarters of the City. Examples of light abatement are shown from working class districts in Brooklyn, one of New York's outer boros.

Bob Cohanim
"Modeling a Planet in a Mira Wind"
Following a suggestion by Willson and Struck (JAAVSO submitted) I have been constructing a model of what happens when a Jovian planet is caught in the wind of a Mira. The resulting movies show a lot of interesting features: Wake, accretion disk, shocks. Some of these may lead to observable phenomena, like "hot flashes".

Lee Anne Willson
"www.polaris.iastate.edu"
We've been working on a series of web-based courses on basic astronomical concepts, such as coordinate systems and the diurnal motion of the sky. I will discuss the philosophy behind this project and show one or two examples of what we have developed so far.

Frederick R. West
"The Corona of CN Leonis"
Flare activity by the star Gliese 406 (Wolf 359) was first reported by Sendig (1951). Confirmation of its optical variability by other observers led to its variable star name CN Leonis (CN Leo). An emission line of highly ionized iron (Fe XIII at ( = 3,388.1 Å) from the corona of this red dwarf (M6Ve) star 490,000 a.u. (2.4 pc) from the Sun was recently reported by Schmitt and Wichmann (2001). This was the first near-optical ground-based detection of the corona of a star other than the Sun. This paper compares CN Leo to the closer (268,200 a.u. = 1.3 pc) red dwarf (dM5e) V645 Centauri (V645 Cen), also known as Proxima Cen and Gliese 551. The coronae of both nearby red dwarfs have been detected by their x-ray emissions. The question is raised why ultraviolet coronal emission lines have not been detected in ground-based spectra of V645 Cen. Radio emission has reportedly been detected from V645 Cen. Since Schmitt and Wichmann (2001) stated that their observation indicated great similarities between coronae of CN Leo and the Sun, calculations have been made of a radio telescope threshold sensitivity that might be required for the detection of the corona of CN Leo at radio wavelengths.

George Hawkins
“Combining the 2MASS Catalog and the AAVSO International Database; Results for CV’s”
There have been few studies of the near-infrared properties of Cataclysmic Variables (CVs), and most do not include simultaneous visual observations. Thus it seems natural to combine results from the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) with the AAVSO International Database for the ~300 CVs and Nova-like variables on the AAVSO program. The 2MASS survey is now half finished, and a large catalog has recently been released on the web covering half the sky. AAVSO visual estimates provide data on whether the CV was in outburst or quiescence at the time of the 2MASS observations. I will show that CVs in outburst occupy a distinct part of the optical-near-infrared color-color diagram. By combining this study with the previous near-infrared results of Berriman, Szkody and Capps (1985 MNRAS, 217, 327), I will also show the tracks in the color-color diagram of a few CVs as they go from quiescence to outburst.