Outburst of FS Aurigae

Some observers in the chat room are reporting that their observations submitted since November 11, 2010 are not showing up in our online tools. Doc and Matt will investigate this first thing in the morning (eastern) and update this page when they know more information. We apologize for this inconvenience.

Bright outburst of the cataclysmic variable SDSS J133941.11+484727.5

There is now a sequence available for SN2011B. 

You will need to specify the coordinates (I used 08 55 48.50 +78 13 02.7 from the discovery telegram) to plot a chart, or you can simply download this E scale DSS image chart and print it.

Enjoy!

Nova Sagittarii 2011 = PNV J17474639-2335112

Our Assistant Director, Aaron Price, has had a heck of a year!

Early in 2010, he was made Assistant Director of the AAVSO. Later that year we celebrated his defending his Ph.D. But something more unusual, at least for an AAVSO staffer, was on the horizon.

It would seem to an outside observer, perhaps, that AAVSO staffers are more committed to their work than most. While most of us (but not all) are married, the vast majority of us have no children now. With the single exception of Gloria, those that do have children have grown children.

We received some sad news at the AAVSO ten days ago regarding one of the participants in the AAVSO's project to digitize data from the Harvard Annals. Daniel Rupp wrote me to let me know that his son, Andrew Rupp, passed away on January 7, 2011. Along with this news, Mr. Rupp passed along the spreadsheets that Andrew had in progress. All told, Andrew digitized more than 2700 observations for 10 different Mira variables, extending our light curves for these stars backwards in time by nearly eleven years.

Supernova 2011K in anonymous galaxy is Type-Ia pre-maximum

January 14, 2011: We have been informed by the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams (CBET 2636, Daniel W. E. Green, Ed.) that A. J. Drake, California Institute of Technology, et al. report a Catalina Real-Time Transient Survey discovery of a supernova in a faint anonymous galaxy in Catalina Sky Survey unfiltered images on January 13.19 UT at magnitude 15.1.

http://www.aavso.org/ejaavso

Photometry requested for three "Vestoid" Near-Earth Objects

January 8, 2011: Dr. Michael David Hicks (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) contacted the AAVSO requesting precision 
photometry of three solar system objects in support of NASA's DAWN mission to Vesta.          

http://www.aavso.org/ejaavso