Historical light curves provide an interesting study of the long-term behavioral changes exhibited in some stars. The AAVSO is a unique resource for variable star research because it contains millions of variable star observations dating back to before the organization was founded in 1911.
Welcome to the AAVSO's Research Portal. From this page, you can find information about obtaining AAVSO data, requesting new observations, or learning more about the AAVSO, its data, and its services for the research community. Its purpose is to facilitate your use of the AAVSO's resources in your research efforts.
See the blue boxes on the right hand side of this page to access the AAVSO data archives or to find out how to work with the AAVSO to obtain new scientific data.
The Norwich Bulletin, of Norwich, Ct., published an article about AAVSO co-founder William Tyler Olcott in their blog focused on the history of the town. It includes interesting tidbits about Mr. Olcott, references to the AAVSO and proposals for ways to commemorate him.
The purpose of this project is to document the history of the Information Technology Infrastructure of the AAVSO, how it came to be, what hardware was used, who were the people involved, and how the technology was used to further the mission of variable star observing and analysis.
The Advancing Variable Star Astronomy book that chronicles the first 100 years of the AAVSO is now available as an Amazon Kindle e-book. Of course, hard copies are still available from the AAVSO for $80 (20% discount), while supplies last.
The AAVSO's volunteer-driven project to digitize paper archives of variable star observations is moving forward, and there have been some exciting developments over the past few months that deserve to be mentioned. Here, I'll summarize some of the happenings in this project, and talk about some of the issues that have arisen at AAVSO and among the volunteers.
The Advancing Variable Star Astronomy book that chronicles the first 100 years of the AAVSO is now available as an Amazon Kindle e-book. Of course, hard copies are still available from the AAVSO for $80 (20% discount), while supplies last.