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News and Announcements
14 March 2nd DSLR Online Chat: March 19 at 11:00 AM ET

Members from the Citizen Sky DSLR Documentation and Reduction team will be hosting a second chat on Saturday, March 19 at 11:00 AM Eastern.  If you have questions about using your DSLR camera for photometry, or any portion of their tutorials please plan to attend.  Science questions are also welcome. More details on how to join the chat will follow this week. Click here for info on how to join the chat.
09 March Abstract Deadline TODAY 3/9!

This is a friendly abstract deadline reminder for the joint AAVSO/AAS meeting being held in Boston this May:
05 March DSLR Chat Transcript From Last Saturday at 11am ET (-5UT)

Note: This chat is over. A transcript can be found here.
05 March Charts and Sequences update March 2011

 

The following stars have new or revised sequences since Feb. 02, 2011.
If you observe any of these stars, please update your charts as soon as possible.
This batch of updates includes many stars visible from the southern heisphere only.
 

SN2011b
05 March AAVSO Special Notice #236

HST observations scheduled for SDSS074545
04 March Two new jaavso preprints...

ej 139: Recent Maxima of 56 Short Period Pulsating Stars (G. Samolyk)

http://www.aavso.org/ejaavso139

 

ej 138: The Z CamPaign: Year 1 (M. Simonsen)

http://www.aavso.org/ejaavso138
02 March View your VPHOT data with VStar!

A new version of VStar has just been released, and along with it, a plugin that will allow you to upload data to plot in the AAVSO Extended File Format. Which means... you can now view your data as output by VPHOT.

To download VStar or read more about it, please visit this page: http://www.aavso.org/vstar-overview

To read more about the VStar plugin mentioned above or download it or one of the other ones for your own use, see this page: http://www.aavso.org/vstar-plugin-library
25 February AAVSO Bulletin 74 for 2011

Predicted Dates of Maxima and Minima of 381 Long Period Variables for 2011
24 February AAVSO Alert Notice 431

Request to monitor SDSS074545 for HST Observations


February 25, 2011: Dr. Paula Szkody (University of Washington) has requested our help in monitoring the cataclysmic variable SDSS074545 (SDSS J074531.91+453829.5) for upcoming Hubble Space Telescope observations. The HST observations are scheduled to be made during the week of 2011 March 7-14. Dr. Szkody also observed this object with HST in October-November 2007 (see AAVSO Alert Notice 359).

23 February Standard Stars in VSP

The 2009 Landolt UBVRI Equatorial Standard Fields are being added to VSP. Descriptions of all the fields are included in the tables below. In order to plot them you need to enter the coordinates and size of the field you want.

22 February 20 Million Observations

On Feburary 19, 2011 the number of observations in the AAVSO International Database surpassed the 20 million mark. It is fitting that this milestone was achieved during our 100th anniversary. Below is some information about the achievement.
15 February VSP Improvements


15 February AAVSO Special Notice #235

Request for archival data: V1647 Ori and McNeil's Nebula

 
14 February AAVSO Special Notice #234

Outburst of FS Aurigae
10 February 100th Spring Meeting of the AAVSO

A milestone anniversary and a joint meeting with the AAS!

May 21-26, 2011
Boston, MA

 

An archive for this meeting will be available on the AAS web site shortly.
10 February Database Errors Reported

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.
08 February MyNewsFlash Subscription Form

A new tool for adding, removing and updating your MyNewsFlash accounts is now online. You can visit it at this URL:

http://www.aavso.org/mynewsflash
07 February AAVSO Special Notice #233

Bright outburst of the cataclysmic variable SDSS J133941.11+484727.5
05 February AAVSO Special Notice #232

Note: This Special Notice was originally issued as AAVSO Special Notice #231; #232 is the correct number.
02 February New Sequence for SN2011B

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!
02 February AAVSO Special Notice #231

T Pyx Observations Requested


February 1, 2011: Sumner Starrfield (Arizona State University) has informed us that Chandra is currently observing the cataclysmic variable T Pyx.  He and his colleagues would like supporting optical monitoring of the star during the visitation.  One visit is happening now; the next and final visit will occur on February 5 (UT).
31 January AAVSO Special Notice #230

Nova Sagittarii 2011 = PNV J17474639-2335112
28 January Monday System Maintenance

This Monday, 31 January 2011, at 12:00ET (17:00UTC) the AAVSO Website will be down for one hour to look into the installation of a Wide Area Network Router which, if successful, will combine the two internet feeds we have here at HQ into one which will allow us to seamlessly increase both our incomming and outgoing data rates.

Any questions or concerns can be sent to Doc Kinne at rkinne @ aavso.org.
25 January And Baby Makes...

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.
24 January AAVSO Special Notice #229

Outburst of FS Aurigae
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