Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Fri, 10/31/2014 - 20:05

The Eggen Card Project is still ticking along and looking for more volunteers!

So far we have processed some 17,000 cards and worked over 250 hours on the project.

But there are still 87,000 cards to be indexed.

Take a look at the project at the project page and join up. Its not hard work. A good way to spend during those cloudy nights. By indexing these cards we make Olin Eggen's photometric data of the past century available to todays researchers.

Look for me at the November meeting!

George Silvis

SGEO

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Eggen Card Project

 

The Eggen Card Project is still in motion, albeit slowly.

With 83,000 cards still to review at an average rate of 75 cards per hour, this project needs 1100 hours of volunteer time. Sounds like a lot, but many hands will make it quicker.

Please take a look at the project page . This is also available from the AAVSO Data menu.

If anyone has suggestions of other groups of astonomy interested folk that might be willing to put some time into this project, please pass them along to me. I'm looking for any way to speed this project to completion,.

At the 2014 Meeting I presented the current project status and expressed a hope that the 2015 meeting would see it completed. Let's make it happen!

Thanks

George

 

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Eggen Card Portal

 

If you're asking about the Card Portal , it is organized in 3 sections:

- first line is where you signin with name and password and can see your progress in the session and to-date, number of cards you have classed and how long you spent.

- The second line is where you select a batch of cards to review. If you are classifying then you would specify the Box, Bundle and PDF and see all the cards. You might also specify class= n to see just the cards that need to be reviewed. This line also includes record filters for an end user. For instance, just specify a star designation and the interface will find all the cards that have been tagged with that star. Note that it will check for all known aliases of the star name you gave.

- The third line is where you see the details of the card and can edit them. Reviewers are looking to set the Color, Orientaton and Classification for the card and Note if you wish. But before you hit Update you first identify the star(s) mentioned on that card. Here you use edit boxes to the side of the card. Put in a name you think is on the card, and hit the Check button. This takes you to simbad where you can look for confirming evidence of your identification: alternate star name or coordinates. Once you are sure, go back to the portal and Add the star. Now you can Update it as D for done and move to the next star in the batch you requested.

The Instructions in project page describe this process in more detail. But questions are good. I'm available via the forum and private email and skype to help out and get you trained.

First step, read through the instructions and then request from me a userid/psw and I will give you an assignment of a block of cards.

Cheers,

George

 

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Dates?

Just started reviewing cards.  Lots of fun, a little detective work.  Great way to spend a cloudy evening.  I did notice that many of the cards (OK I have only processed 48) did not have dates on them.  Is this typical, or am I missing how he dated the cards?  I think a lot of my deck is position measurement.  Anyway just trying to decipher some of the information on the cards. So far identifying the stars has been straightforward after learning how Eggen wrote each number, and he usually puts multiple designations for the star on the same card.

Jim

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Question on format

George,

Is there a way to know how many cards are in each pdf?  I am a little confused about the 'pdf' and 'page' fields.  I am working on box 11a, bundle d.  But I do not know how many pdfs (maybe 4?) and how many pages in each pdf.  It seems like sometimes the next button won't advance the to the next card even after waiting for update.  Is this what happens when you get to the end of a pdf?  

It would be great if you could take a quick look at box 11a bundle d and give me an idea of what I have done with respect to pdf number and page number.

Thanks much

Jim

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Eggen Card Project: year end report, 2014-2015

The project is still rolling forward. It's definitley a long-term project as we are heading into our 4th year. 

The project entails looking at some 108,000 observation card images left to us by Olin Eggen. At this point some 42,500 cards have been examined, leaving only 65,500 to go!

The current phase of the project is to index the cards. That is, identify the star(s) referenced by each card.  This goal has been refined this year: we are concentrating on indexing only the cards that clearly contain variable star photometry. There are lots of cards that apparently deal with astrometry, of little interest to the AAVSO. So now we spend the minute or so it takes to index a card only if it clearly contains photometry AND observation times.

There has been good participation in the project: This year we reached 13 contributors. Special thanks to Duane Dedrickson, Jack Crast and Ed Schmidt for the help this year.

We have also begun experimenting with the next phase of the project: extracting the photometry from the cards and getting it into the AID and available to the Light Curve Generator. We will soon have 1000's of Olin's observations available there.

We still need more helpers willing to contribute some of their rainy eveing time. The project description is available from the AAVSO main menu. Come join us!

Cheers,

George

 

 

 

 

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Progress report

The Eggen project has been rolling along for some 3 years now and we continue to make progress. At this point a third of the card images have been examined and indexed.

What comes after indexing? Why, we want to push Eggen's data in the AID. Jack Crast and I have started experimenting with the process. With the excitement over R Aqr lately I took a look to see if we had found Eggen's observations of this star. Sure enough, I found 88 observations from 1969. These can be viewed in the LCG (observer code EOJ) or jump to it here.

More hands make the work go quicker; we're always looking for more volunteers to help out. Check out the project description at https://sites.google.com/site/eggencards/home and send me a note. I'll be happy to have you join the team!

Cheers

George

 

 

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Eggen Card Project: 60% done!

That's right, we've completed 60% of the indexing phase of the project! 65,000 cards have been examined and only 44,000 remain to be done. We have a very real chance of being done by the Fall meeting!

The project has been refined to concentrate work on indexing cards that have photometry relevant to the AAVSO's interests. Right now I have two volunteers cranking through over 1000 cards-per-month. I reinvite past volunteers that have been resting to rejoin the effort to make this push! And new hands are welcome; I'll train you so you can contribute too!

Thanks again for all the work from all the volunteers: they've contributed over 1000 hrs to get us to this point.

George

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
What a remarkable effort!

Friends,

Thank you all for undertaking this task! Indexing the Eggen cards requires a lot of effort and persistance. This project wouldn't be possible without you, our volunteers. The end result will provide an additional resource for the scientific community, another database for data mining and light curve exploration. Noone knows what discoveries can be made from the resultant light curves. The answer to a long-standing astronomical problem may be hiding in there...

Many thanks to George for leading this project and to all who contribute!

Best wishes - clear skies,

Stella.