As part of the data validation project most of the observations in the AAVSO International Database are being validated. As they are validated they are placed online for immediate download by the public.

In July, 2004 the AAVSO launched a program that sends a monthly report to observers consisting of the number of times any of their data was downloaded via the online data download tool. The reports look something like this:

Below is a summary of each field:

• Star: This is the star's name as listed in the AAVSO Validation File.
• Requester: This is the answer to the question: "Which best describes you?" on our request data page.
• Use: This is the answer to the question: "How do you plan to use the data?" on our request data page.

Note that there may be duplicate listings. This means that multiple people requested the same data on the same star for the same reason. This is fairly common, especially with the more popular stars with large data sets.

How to Sign Up

How It Works

The program goes through a log file created by the data download software. It looks at the star and the time period of data downloaded and pulls out all the observer codes in that dataset. The observer codes are compared against our database of members and observers to find an e-mail address. Once the log file has been analysed, the instances of an observer's data being downloaded are tallied, reformatted and then sent to the observer via e-mail.

Limitations

This report only covers data downloaded immediately via the web site. It does not include other data requests. For example, if the requester asks for data that is not yet validated then it is not included in the report. Other forms of data requests such as e-mail, telephone calls and postal mail are also not included. As of July 2004 it is our experience that this report consists of around 60% of the official data requests received by AAVSO HQ.

Official data requests are usually requests for raw data. However, that does not include unofficial requests which we get through the light curve generator and the Quick Look file. We receive about 700 requests per day through those two sources combined.

Finally, these reports are e-mailed to individuals. This, of course, means we need to have active e-mail addresses for the observer. E-mail addresses can be sent to AAVSO HQ using this form.