AAVSO: Welcome to the New AAVSO Website

We have changed the "look and feel" of the website, added some pages, and reorganized some things here that we hope will make your AAVSO web experience an enjoyable one.

The home page

The top portion of the page features a search engine query and a drop-down menu site map that enables you to highlight your link of choice and press "go" to get to the page that you want.

On the upper right side of the page are two links. One will take you to a home page tailored for "Research and Analyses" and the other is to a page designed for "New Observers". These pages provide links and news that these two groups may find most interesting.

There is a lot of space now on the home page for news and announcements to keep visitors informed of new activities, publications, and news items. One special feature will be highlighted in the middle (right now it is on Dorrit Hoffleit's autobiography). The boxes on the right side of the home page will also feature anything that is new or noteworthy. Currently, the bottom box shows the status of the data validation project at HQ. This box will change to show the progress of the project over the coming months. The new and noteworthy items featured in these boxes and on the home page will constantly change so keep your eyes on them!

On the left side of the page is our new "pick a star" feature. This feature enables you to retrieve charts, recent observations, or a light curve on the star of your choice. Below that, is our "top ten downloaded pages" list. This list will change periodically depending on which pages are downloaded most frequently from our website.

On the lower left side of the home page you will find the main sections of the website. These are the links that will take you to the bulk of the site.

Organization

The main sections of our website have changed a little bit from the previous site. The two biggest changes are:

The AAVSO section now includes all the information about the AAVSO and its activities. You will now find everything about the organization, meetings, and membership in this section.
Observing is a large section that encompasses everything from how to observe, observing aids, observing programs to submitting your observations. A large part of observing is using star charts, so you will also find all of the charts in this section.

Navigation

If you click on one of the main section links of the site, you will come to the "table of contents" page for that section. Here you will find a brief description of the section with every sub-section listed under the title "In This Section". All of the remaining pages for the section will maintain this list on the left.

Breadcrumbs - One new addition to the site that should help you navigate more easily are the "breadcrumb" links on the top-left most portion of each page. These links tell you where you are on the site and enable you to link back to previous pages.

Printing Tips

If you are not able to print all of the text on one page (if it bleeds off to the right) try adjusting the margins to zero on the "page setup" option under your browser's "file" selecton. Another possibility to try is to decrease the font size on the page to a smaller one so that all of the text will fit on the page.

New Pages added:

Some new pages were created for the new site that you might like to visit:

Impact on science
Data Validation Project
In Remembrance of AAVSO Observers Section
Revamped Gamma-Ray Burst section - is now High Energy Network section
AAVSO International Database

If you have any comments or questions about the new site please contact the webmaster.

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