April 25, 2017: Dr. Carlo Manara (ESA Science and Technology SCI-S, the Netherlands) and colleagues have requested AAVSO assistance in monitoring the young, disk-bearing low-mass (M type) pre-main-sequence star EPIC 204278916 (2MASS J16020757-2257467).
April 6, 2017 : Dr. Nicolas Grosso (CNRS, Observatoire Astronomique de Strasbourg) has requested AAVSO assistance in monitoring the young eruptive star (FUOR type) V2492 Cyg from the optical to the infrared in support of X-ray observations with XMM-Newton scheduled for 2017 April 18 UT.
The XMM observations will take place: 2017-04-18 03:27:07 UT - 2017-04-18 14:17:07 UT.
AAVSO Newsletter 72, April 2017 is now available to members
The AAVSO Newsletter is a periodic, general forum that supports our various observing programs with lists of new targets, observing programming ideas, and general information that spans a wide area of interest. Guest writers contribute pieces that can range from current events to book reviews.
April 3, 2017: Dr. Rudolf Gális (Pavel Jozef Šafárik University (Slovakia)) and colleagues have requested AAVSO assistance in observing the symbiotic variable AG Dra. Observations are requested as a follow-up to spectroscopic observations and in order to monitor the system for an anticipated outburst.
March 16, 2017: Dr. Karen Collins (Vanderbilt University) has requested ground-based, follow-up observations of recently discovered exoplanet Proxima Centauri b. This exoplanet is a suspected Earth-size planet orbiting in the habitable zone of our nearest stellar neighbor, Proxima Centauri (V645 Cen). There exists a rough ephemeris of this target based on radial velocity measurements, so the predicted mid-transit times can vary +/- 6 hours. Therefore, it is requested that observations be as long as possible.
March 7, 2017 : Dr. Fred Walter (Stony Brook University) has requested AAVSO observers' assistance in monitoring NR TrA (Nova TrA 2008) in support of upcoming XMM Newton observations. The XMM observations will take place 2017 March 13 06:21 through March 14 10:34 UT.
The AAVSO Annual Report for 2015-2016 has been published and is online. Both a high-resolution and a low-resolution version are available at https://www.aavso.org/annual-report.