The NASA Infrared Science Archive (IRSA) at Caltech is working with the AAVSO to bring the AAVSO variable star measurements on-line in a dynamically searchable DBMS front-ended by globally-accessible web services. The results of such a search can either be downloaded as text or displayed interactively in a JAVA plot GUI. In addition, the system allows for area searches (finding all the AAVSO sources in a region), the results of which can be sent to the Oasis JAVA-based GIS multi-archive data access and fusion system (usable through most Web browsers).

We have analyzed the complex variability of five small-amplitude pulsating red giants -- RZ Ari, V523 Mon, BC CMi, UX Lyn, FS Com -- using a 5000-day database of V photometry from a robotic telescope. For each of these stars, two or three periods recur in each season, and are present in separate halves of the dataset. The periods and their ratios are consistent with low-order radial pulsation modes; the stars are pulsating in multiple overtones, or harmonics. The amplitudes of the modes rise and fall significantly on time scales of 2000 to 3500 days. In UX Lyn and FS Com, there are long secondary periods which add a "bass drone" to the wavering chord of the radial modes. Even with all these periods accounted for, there are small residuals, which suggest that the celestial harmony is even more complex than we might think.

The H Band is a region of the infrared centered at wavelength 1.65 micron in a clear window between atmospheric absorption bands. Cool stars such as Mira variables are brightest in this band, and the amplitudes of the light curves of Miras are typically 5 times smaller in H than in V. Since the AAVSO is currently exploring the possibility of distributing H-band photometers to interested members, it is of interest to examine the stellar spectra that these photometers would measure. In most red giant stars, the strongest spectral features in the H band are a set of absorption bands due to the CO molecule. Theoretical spectra calculated from model atmospheres are used to illustrate the pronounced flux peak in H, which persists over a wide range of temperature. The models also show that the light in the H band emerges from deeper layers of the star’s atmosphere than the light in any other band.

V838 Mon underwent an initial outburst in January, 2002. After a month-long standstill, it suddenly rose to 7th magnitude in February. Then things started to get really interesting. The spectra became very red, reaching M8 by the time the object went behind the sun. A light-echo was discovered around the star, expanding rapidly throughout February and March and by early September reaching almost an arcminute in diameter. Several visits by HST have been made, with results presented in this paper.

This object is an ideal project for long-term monitoring by amateurs using small telescopes, CCDs, and standard filters. I will discuss some tricks to obtain the highest precision photometry of V838 Mon and its light echo during the current observing season.

Examples are given of the extreme usefulness of the Harvard College Observatory Photographic Plate Collection for the study of variable stars that possess only limited observational data. Program objects studied with the aid of archival photographic data include the following selection of stars: (i) BC Cygni, a semi-regular M3 Ia supergiant belonging to the young open cluster Berkeley 87, revealed to be a multiperiodic, low-amplitude pulsator; (ii) V439 Cygni, an exotic BO: V:nne star, also belonging to Berkeley 87 and once listed as a semi-regular with carbon star characteristics, now confirmed to be a Gamma Cassiopeiae variable that apparently undergoes spectral masking when it brightens, (iii) HD 174404, a bright companion to the Cepheid BB Sagittarii and an outlying member of the loose cluster Collinder 394, discovered twenty years ago to be a long-period eclipsing binary of period P = 59d.86 and now firmly established to under go both primary and secondary eclipses with a refined orbital period of P = 59d.83, and (iv) T Antilae, a classical Cepheid variable somewhat detached from the main plane of the Milky Way, because of which it was long suspected to be a Type II Cepheid, and now established to be a possible member of a loose cluster of B-type stars lying in its vicinity. In the case of T Antilae, the plate archives yielded not only data for the star’s brightness variations but also on the spectral characteristics of all stars brighter than B = 12 in the field.

Many far southern eclipsing binaries have been neglected since publication of the original papers announcing their minima prediction elements. NP Pavonis is an exception. Good quality PEP data were obtained in 1984 and again in 1995 and were used to refine the period. However, the number of elapsed cycles in that eleven-year interval was miscalculated. Persistent visual observation reveals this error and provides corrected elements.

During this year two amaterur observatories made a collaborative CCD photometry campaign observing two delta Scuti stars V2128 Oph and V645 Her. The preliminary results, including colors and period determination, of the campaign are shown in this paper.

Since the creation of the Variable Star Section of the Latin American Astronomical League (LIADA) in later 1982, the development of variable star research, in co-operation between amateur and professional astronomers, was significant. Several meetings, including workshops and symposia, were devoted to variable star observing since that time. Particularly, the latest two years where a signficant growing phase. Several discoveries, fruitful observing campaigns and publications of research results were collected and the main purpose of this small review is to show this evolution.

The purpose of this experiment is to see how Wolf number sunspot counts compare over time with modern Zurich number sunspot counts. Six AAVSO sunspot observers made Wolf number sunspot counts using Wolf's system of counting as defined in Waldmeier's introduction to his book (Waldmeier, 1962). Nine AAVSO sunspot observers made sunspot counts according to the Zurich system of counting also described by Waldmeier in his book. The two sets of data are compared graphically for the period September 2001 through September 2002.

Over the last couple decades New York City implemented, and continues to carry out, several schemes of eradicating luminous graffiti. One result has been the gradual recovery of the natural nightsky. By 1994 the normal clearsky transparency over Manhattan deepened to fourth magnitude and has been slowly creeping deeper until 2002 at 4 to 4-1/2 magnitude. In spring of 1995, during some lazing on a Manhattan rooftop under a sky full of stars, several New York astronomers hatched the idea of letting the whole people celebrate the renewed starry sky. In due course they, thru the Amateur Astronomers Association, engaged the New York City Parks Department and the Urban Park Rangers in an evening of quiet picnicking to enjoy the stars in their natural sky. Thus the Urban Star Fest was born. The event thrilled about 3,000 visitors in Central Park's Sheep Meadow on Saturday 30 September 1005. The eighth Fest, American Urban Star Fest since the 2000 running, demonstrated the City's upper skyline of stars on Saturday 5 October 2002 to about 2,200 enthused visitors. Although the Fest is always noted as cancellable for inclement weather, so far, it was convened on every year. Attendance ranged from 4,000 down to a mere 1,000, this latter being under the smoke plume of World trade Center in 2001. Despite this swing in attendance, the American Urban Star Fest is America's largest regularly scheduled public astronomy event. Of course, special occasions, like comets or eclipses, can and do attract far larger interest both in the City and elsewhere. The presentation shows the setup and program of American Urban Star Fest, taken from several instances of it, to illustrate how the general public can actively become aware of the night sky and see for themselves the results of their very own efforts at removing light pollution -- and note where improvement is yet to come.

AAVSO-ers automatically think of variable stars when they think of change in the sky. In the school science curriculum, however, "change in the sky" refers to the motions of the sun, moon, and planets in the sky. Students are encouraged to observe these motions, since they are a good way of "doing science". Planetary motions can be dull, however, and variable stars can be exciting, but the usual concern is that very few stars can be seen from urban locations. We have therefore developed this simple activity in which students estimate "the urban variable" Betelgeuse, relative to Aldebaran and Procyon, and pool their own results with longer-term from the AAVSO web site. They can then exercise a wide range of science and math skills, as well as investigating one of the brightest, largest and most bizarre objects in the sky. We show how this activity, which is an extension of the AAVSO's Hands-On Astrophysics project, meets most of the expectations of a typical school science curriculum.

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) will map 25% of the night sky from 9th to 23rd magnitude, cataloging more than 100 million objects and taking spectra of more than 1 million objects. All data from the SDSS will be publicly available on the Internet. SDSS data will give the public a unique opportunity to conduct astronomical research using the same data that professional astronomers use

A full nonlinear time series analysis was conducted of ~100 years of AAVSO data for SS Cygni. Since these methods work for continuous data, gaps in the data were filled by linear interpolation. The intensity data, obtained using F(\Lambda), where F(\Lambda) = 10 - (0.4 (visual magnitude) + 8.43), were analyzed. Intensity curves were analyzed because intensity, i.e. energy, couples active degrees of freedom better than magnitude and as such better reflects the dynamics. A phase space portrait was reconstructed using average mutual information to obtain the optimal time delay of 40 days and the false nearest neighbor method to probe for the low limit on the dimension of the reconstruction. The local correlation dimension was calculated for this reconstruction. In 3D, a Poincare section was obtained. The Poincare section return times indicate a long-term periodicity of ~52 years. Earlier work (reef) using the O-C gave a long-term variation on the order of 100 years. In an attempt to understand our result, we obtained burst energy by integrating burst area with respect to the baseline defined by adjacent quiescent sections. Excellent agreement was found between the variation of the interval between bursts and the variation in the Poincare section return times. In addition we generate a "reconstructed power spectrum". It is thought that this new tool may be helpful in determining whether the system is chaotic in the dynamic sense.

Many factors are involved in selecting an observing site, but the most important one is the amount of clear skies. Where complete weather observation data is absent, an active AAVSO observer in a location under consideration indirectly provides reliable data on sky conditions. Since an observation confirms suitable weather conditions, data submitted to AAVSO can be used to indicate the minimum amount of useable skies. Data from a very active AAVSO Observer living in Pahala, Hawaii - Wm. Albrecht (AB), was analyzed to form an impression of the quantity of clear skies over nearly 20 years of observations. From the analysis, quantitative information on the site characteristics was obtained.

Comparison star magnitude sequences on the older AAVSO charts come from various sources and are often significantly different from the modern V system. Archived AAVSO variable data can be transformed by various algorithms. The transformed observations can be better combined with modern observations.

There are 205,500 visual observations for 148 Cepheids as well as 678 photoelectric observations for 27 Cepheids in the AAVSO database. These data were reduced with Hertzsprung's method and 2,010 moments of maximum brightness were obtained. 15 O-C diagrams for well-observed Cepheids are presented and results obtained are compared with existing data.

I will present new observational data concerning the RCB stars and their evolutionary status. There are two major models for the origin of RCB stars: the Double Degenerate and the Final Helium Shell Flash. In the final flash model, there is a close relationship between RCB stars and Planetary Nebulae (PNe). The connection between RCB stars and PNe has recently become stronger, since the central stars of three old PNe (Sakurai's Object, V605 Aql and FG Sge) have had observed outbursts that transformed them from hot evolved central stars into cool giants with the spectral properties of an RCB star.

I will also discuss new RCB stars recently identified in the Galaxy and in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) using the MACHO project photometry database. The absolute luminosities of the Galactic RCB stars are unknown since there is no direct measurement of the distance to any Galactic RCB star. Hence, the importance of the LMC RCB stars.

Herbig Ae/Be stars are not known to exhibit water maser emission very frequently, but some Herbig Ae/Be stars do exhibit maser emission. Because many other sources have associated water masers, research on Herbig Ae/Be masers has been limited. I will present early results from a VLA/VLBA observation campaign to map the water masers near these interesting, sometimes variable stars.

A restoration of a recently recovered Super 8 movie of the total eclipse from the AAVSO site at Athens, Maine. How many AAVSO'ers can you recognize?