The AAVSO Annual Report for 2016-2017 has been published and is online. Both a high-resolution and a low-resolution version are available at https://www.aavso.org/annual-report.
Thanks to observer and volunteer, Alexandre Amorim from Brazil, we now have available a Portuguese translation of the AAVSO Solar Observing Guide available for download (free-of-charge). This helpful Guide explains how to observe and report sunspot counts in a safe and scientifically useful manner.
March 21, 2018: Dr. Tom Maccarone (Texas Tech University) has requested AAVSO observers' assistance in monitoring the outbursting black hole X-ray binary ASASSN-18ey = MAXI J1820+070 in support of VLT and XMM observations scheduled for:
2018 22 March 08-09:30 UT and 29 March 08-09:30 UT
V time series are requested, with as short a cadence as possible (ideally, a time resolution of 0.1 second or better).
March 19, 2018: Drs. Gregory Sivakoff (University of Alberta), Poshak Gandhi (University of Southampton), and Diego Altamirano (University of Southampton) have requested AAVSO observers' assistance in monitoring the new black hole X-ray binary candidate ASASSN-18ey = MAXI J1820+070.
March 16, 2018: Dr. Jennifer Sokoloski (Columbia University) and colleagues (led by Dr. Koji Mukai, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center) have requested AAVSO assistance in observing the nova/dwarf nova V1017 Sgr in preparation for an XMM-Newton observation scheduled for 2018 March 23 or 24.
Confirmation that the system is not in dwarf-nova outburst as of March 23 is needed so that the XMM observation may take place.
March 15, 2018: Evan A. Rich (Ph.D. candidate, University of Oklahoma), and Drs. John Wisniewski (University of Oklahoma), John Tobin (University of Oklahoma), Carol Grady (Goddard Space Flight Center), and Mike Sitko (University of Cincinnati) have requested AAVSO assistance in monitoring the bright (6.9 V) Young Stellar Object NSV 24045 (HD 163296) from now through September 2018.
