News and Announcements

April 9, 2013:  In AAVSO Special Notice #346 (http://www.aavso.org/aavso-special-notice-346), IU Leo was said to have a close companion about 2 arcsec to the NE. This is not correct - it is IY UMa that has this close companion.

We extend sincere apologies to Dr. Szkody for misquoting her and to our readers for the error.


This AAVSO Special Notice was compiled by Elizabeth O. Waagen.

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The following charts (listed in order by constellation) have new or revised sequences since December 20, 2012. This list is quite long. A .csv file is available as an attachment here at the bottom of the page as well.

If you observe any of these stars please update your charts as soon as possible. 

April 4, 2013: Huan Meng and Dr. George Rieke (University of Arizona) have requested AAVSO assistance in monitoring three bright stars with developing planetary systems. The stars have been observed with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to have varying levels of dust in the circumstellar disk. These varying levels are thought to be produced through collisions among the asteroid-size debris in the disk.

Scanned copies of the AAVSO Solar Bulletin Vol. 1 (1945) through Vol. 9 (1953) are now online. These first nine volumes were edited and produced by the first Solar Division Chairman, Neal J. Heines (1892-1955).

Our thanks to volunteer Anna Hillier for making these scans at AAVSO Headquarters.

http://www.aavso.org/solar-bulletin

March 19, 2013:  The AAVSO solicits participation in an online survey from our member and observer communities. The survey is being conducted in advance of an upcoming long-term observing campaign that will be launched in mid-April 2013.  We are seeking participation in this survey from as broad a sample of the AAVSO community as possible, and your responses will help us gauge the effectiveness of the campaign and serve the observer community better.

March 18, 2013:  Further to AAVSO Alert Notice 471 (http://www.aavso.org/aavso-alert-notice-471), HST/COS is scheduled to observe the SU UMa-type dwarf nova PU CMa:

PU CMa   2013 March 22 00:00:43 through 02:36:08 UT

The HST observations of PU UMa may be cancelled/postponed, as PU CMa is currently in outburst, according to observations reported to the AAVSO:

March 14, 2013:  Further to AAVSO Alert Notice 471 (http://www.aavso.org/aavso-alert-notice-471) and AAVSO Special Notice #340 (http://www.aavso.org/aavso-special-notice-340), HST/COS is scheduled to observe the dwarf nova V485 Cen on 2013 March 16:

    V485 Cen  2013 March 16 03:02:56 through 09:44:57 UT

The Manual for Visual Observing of Variable Stars (in English) has just been updated. To download this new and improved version, please visit http://www.aavso.org/visual-observing-manual.

Many thanks to Mike Simonsen, Elizabeth Waagen and Matthew Templeton for their input and helpful suggestions.

Sara Beck
AAVSO Technical Staff, Science Team

March 6, 2013: Further to AAVSO Alert Notice 471 (http://www.aavso.org/aavso-alert-notice-471) and AAVSO Special Notice #339 (http://www.aavso.org/aavso-special-notice-339), HST/COS is scheduled to observe two of the dwarf novae in the CV campaign back-to-back:

on 2013 March 8:
SDSS J103533.03+055158.4  2013 March 8 07:42:37 through 15:04:27 UT
(V=18.8 at minimum, has eclipses)

AAVSO Bulletin 76 - Predicted Dates of Maxima and Minima of Long Period Variables for 2013 - has been published and is available from the AAVSO Bulletin page.

AAVSO Bulletin 76 gives predicted dates for 381 Mira and semiregular variables for the period January 2013 through February 2014. These dates are based on observations in the AAVSO International Database.

The American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) invites the participation of professional astronomers in our "Professional Astronomer Survey of 2013."