AGB Newsletter
If you've wondered what kind of research is going on these days, one place to see a lot of paper abstracts conveniently gathered together is the AGB Newsletter.
The AGB Newsletter is edited by Jacco van Loon (Keele University, UK) and Albert Zijlstra (University of Manchester, UK) and features papers related to Asymptotic Giant Branch stars; their structure, behaviour, evolution or mass loss and their impact on the evolution of galaxies.
I strongly suggest that visual observers subscribe. It is an excellent resource of information regarding the research done in the area.
The December 2012 AGB Star Newsletter was issued on Saturday. It is available from the following URL (click "View" for a list of all available issues):
The AGB Newsletter for January 2013 has been published. See the following URL: http://www.astro.keele.ac.uk/AGBnews
Click "View" to see a list of all published issues. The most recent issue is at the top.
This month's AGB Newsletter is now available here: http://www.astro.keele.ac.uk/AGBnews/
There are a few papers using long-term light curves to study variability, as well as using them in conjunction with other observations like IR and interferometry.
There's also a short note on a software package for stellar modeling called MESA which I'm in the process of downloading to try out. People who are both astrophysically and computationally inclined may wish to have a look -- computational modeling of stars (especially AGB stars) is interesting, and I'm curious to see how they've done creating a universal package that does it.
I haven't tried MESA myself, but I attended the CoolStars17 conference last summer where there was a presentation of it. I have to say the results looked quite promising. It can handle for example massive mass loss though heavy winds. If nothing else, you can create some very nice plots of stellar structure and learn a lot about stellar evolution. Such plots and videos are also just about perfect material if you happen to be preparing a lesson about the life of stars.
You can find the code at http://mesa.sourceforge.net/.
This month's AGB Newsletter is now available here: http://www.astro.keele.ac.uk/AGBnews/
I haven't had much time to browse yet, but this issue has several papers on AGB star winds (including R Cas).
This month's AGB Newsletter is now available.
There are several abstracts on Betelgeuse this month, including one on high-resolution radio imaging of asymmetries in the star. There's also one on analysis of red giant EBs observed by Kepler.
Enjoy!
The May 2013 AGB Star Newsletter was published last Thursday. There aren't many papers on named Mira variables, but a few papers on other non-Miras. In fact, one that caught my eye was a poster paper on the very slow novae PU Vul and V723 Cas -- they're mentioned because the donor star in PU Vul is an M giant.
Enjoy,
Matt
The article about the two novae is amazing, you must download pdf. There are many powerful phenomena behind their behaviour. Many years ago I were very interested on V723 Cas because of its slow evolution and numerous brightness peaks; I could stimate this nova during three years and now I can follow it on its late phase by CCD.
In paper there are visual lightcurves of both novae; I wonder if data comes from AAVSO.
I just want to freshen this thread by noting that the November 2012 issue of the AGB star Newsletter has been issued, with a number of interesting papers on AGB stars, RCB/DY Per stars, and symbiotics. I look forward to reading through a number of these after the Annual Meeting concludes!
The URL is here: http://www.astro.keele.ac.uk/AGBnews
and the newsletters are located under "View" on the left-hand menu.