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Observing Campaigns

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AAVSO Observing Campaigns are special projects concentrating on one star or a number of stars for a given researcher and for a specific research program.  Campaigns are designed to obtain a specific set of data or fulfill a specific research objective, and should be (a) within the capabilities of a significant number of AAVSO observers, and (b) last for a finite length of time.

The AAVSO will issue a call for observations at its discretion, but any well-justified program is eligible for AAVSO support.  If you have questions about establishing an AAVSO Observing Campaign, or if you believe your research program would benefit from the participation of the AAVSO observer community, please contact the AAVSO Campaign Coordinator.  The AAVSO can assist with campaigns beyond announcing them; if your project requires substantial assistance of AAVSO staff, we may request grant support for staff activities.  Also, please consider becoming a member if you are not one already!

For Observers: Please read the requests for observations in full, and use your own best judgement as to whether your equipment and abilities are well-matched to the specific project.  When in doubt please contact the researcher directly, or contact AAVSO HQ for guidance and recommendations.  If you are an instrumental observer, we strongly recommend that you calibrate your data and transform all photometry to a standard system!  For some projects this will be required, but it is good practice in general. 

Please visit our observer resources page to find our Visual and CCD observing manuals, guides to photometry, and other tools to help you assess whether a campaign is a good match for you!

For Researchers: Any research effort requires focused and enthusiastic leadership, and the leader of the observing campaign should be you, the researcher.  The more you interact with the observer community, the more likely it is that you will attract observers and obtain good data.  Ideally, the AAVSO's role is merely to issue a call for observations, establish communications between you and the observers, and coordinate the collection of data; your role should be to motivate and encourage observers who participate in your work, analyze the data, and publish the results.  It is required that the work of observers be properly recognized; if any individual observers contribute data that are critically important to the research, we strongly encourage you to offer coauthorship to the observers on any resulting papers.

Please visit our Research portal to find more information about how the AAVSO and its observers can aid you in your research.

Current observing campaigns

Monitoring of SS Cygni in support of European VLBI radio observations, issued 13 October and 19 August 2011

  • Requested by: Dr. James Miller-Jones (International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia)
  • Requested duration: through 2012 at least or until all observation times are used
  • Purpose of request: Support of VBLI radio observations
  • Magnitude of object: V=12 in quiescence, V=8-9 in outburst
  • Related information: Alert Notice 445, Special Notice #258, and organizer's website

PEP Observing Campaign on P Cygni , issued 17 May 2011

Photometry requested for blazar-type quasars 3C 273 and 3C 279, issued 2011 January 11

  • Requested by:  Kirill Sokolovsky (Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Bonn)
  • Requested duration: 2012
  • Purpose of request: combine with multiwavelength observations and VLBA interferometry to obtain a better picture of what these objects are and how they vary; specifically, to search for correlations between the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of these objects and the behavior of the associated relativistic jets at sub-parsec spatial resolution. 
  • Magnitude of objects: V~12.7 3C 273; V~16.1 3C 279
  • Related information: Alert Notice 430 and AAVSO campaign page on these objects.

Photometry of HMXBs, issued regularly as needed, latest issued 2010 October 20

Long-term monitoring of the Young Stellar Objects HBC 722 and VSX J205126.1+440523, issued 2010 October 1

  • Requested by: Dr. Colin Aspin (U. of Hawai'i)
  • Requested duration: Through late 2012
  • Purpose of request: Photometric monitoring and optical calibration for optical and infrared spectroscopy to be undertaken during the coming year
  • Magnitude of objects: HBC 722 -- V=13.5 ; VSX J205126.1+440523 -- V=16.8
  • Related information: Special Notice #216 (discovery) and Alert Notice 425 (campaign announcement)

Monitoring of blazars for VERITAS, XMM, and ground-based followup, issued 2007 July 11

  • Requested by: Dr. Markus Boettcher (Ohio University)
  • Requested duration: Open-ended
  • Purpose of request: Nightly monitoring
  • Magnitude of object: varies by object (V=12 to V=19)
  • Related information: Alert Notice 353

Long-term photometry of QX Puppis, issued 2008 February 1

  • Requested by: Dr. Arne Henden (AAVSO)
  • Requested duration: Open-ended
  • Purpose of request: Long-term monitoring in Rc, V, Ic, and B filters
  • Magnitude of object: Ic=12.5-14.5
  • Related information: AAVSO information page

Photometry of the eclipsing binary Epsilon Aurigae, issued 2009 July 10 - campaign officially ended but observations still encouraged

Monitoring the recurrent nova T Pyx throughout 2011 eruption - campaign officially ended but observations still encouraged

 

Recently completed observing campaigns

Long-term photometry of magnetically active variables, issued 2009 October 7

  • Requested by: Dr. Stella Kafka (DTM, Carnegie Inst. of Washington)
  • Requested duration: Through 2011
  • Purpose of request: Long-term monitoring in Rc, V, Ic, and B filters
  • Magnitude of object: varies by object
  • Related information: Alert Notice 406 and Campaign Page

Monitoring of V455 Andromedae in support of HST observations, issued 2011 September 12

Long-term monitoring of four AGN in support of ground-based spectroscopy, issued 8 July 2011

  • Requested by: Dr. Misty Bentz (Georgia State University)
  • Requested duration: July 10 - November 30, 2011
  • Purpose of request: support of spectroscopic monitoring campaign in variability study
  • Magnitude of object: V=14.0 NGC 6814, V=15.0 NGC 7213, V=14.5 NGC 7469, V=14.5 NGC 1566
  • Related information: Alert Notice 443, Special Notice #249, and Special Notice #262

Request for observations in support of ground-based spectroscopy, issued 27 May 2011

  • Requested by: Dr. Steve Howell (NASA,NOAO) and Dr. Travis Rector (U. of Alaska, Anchorage)
  • Requested duration: immediate request through 2011 June 01, long-term coverage thereafter
  • Purpose of request: correlation with spectra
  • Magnitude of object: various (V=5 to V=13)
  • Related information: Alert Notice 441

Observations of GW Lib in support of HST observations

  • Requested by:  Paula Szkody (University of Washington)
  • Requested duration: March-April 2011
  • Purpose of request: Nightly AAVSO observations will be used to make a go/no go decision when the HST observing window opens, and will also be used in the analysis of the resulting data.
  • Magnitude of object: V~16.8
  • Related information: Alert Notice 433,  Special Notice #238

Observations of SDSS074545 in support of HST observations

  • Requested by:  Paula Szkody (University of Washington)
  • Requested duration: February-March 2011
  • Purpose of request: Nightly AAVSO observations will be used to make a go/no go decision when the HST observing window opens, and will also be used in the analysis of the resulting data.
  • Magnitude of object: V~19.1
  • Related information: Alert Notice 431,  Special Notice #236

Photometry requested for three "Vestoid" Near-Earth Objects, issued 2011 January 07

  • Requested by: Dr. Michael David Hicks (Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
  • Requested duration: January - March 2011
  • Purpose of request: precision photometry of three "Vestoids" (near-Earth objects with similar reflectance spectra to Vesta itself, suggesting they may be fragments of that larger body) in support of NASA's DAWN mission to Vesta
  • Magnitude of objects: V fainter than 16 throughout apparitions of 1981 Midas (1973 EA), 4688 (1980 WF), and 137052 (1998 VO33) during this interval
  • Related information: Alert Notice 429 includes tables of ephemerides

Monitoring requested of the peculiar cataclysmic variable FS Aurigae, issued 2010 November 30

  • Requested by: Dr. Vitaly Neustroev (U. of Oulu, Finland)
  • Requested duration: 2010-2011 observing season
  • Purpose of request: to detect the next outburst as early as possible with V (preferred) twice-nightly observations, and follow outburst throughout duration with intensive  time-series observations
  • Magnitude of object: V=16-17 in quiescence, typically V=13.5-14.0 in outburst
  • Related information: Alert Notice 428, Special Notice #226, and organizer's website
  • Resulting publications: Neustroev et al. 2011

Observing campaign on BM Ori and the Trapezium region, issued 2010 November 23

  • Requested by Dr. Matthew R. Templeton (AAVSO)
  • Requested duration: through 2010-2011 observing season (potentially longer for some targets)
  • Purpose of request: Search for low-amplitude variability in the bright, young stars of the Trapezium region of the Orion Nebula (M42) and surrounding constellations,
  • in conjunction with upcoming observations with the MOST satellite (see Alert Notice 427 for list of target stars)
  • Magnitude of object: targets range from as bright as 6th magnitude to 12-13 and fainter
  • Related information: Alert Notice 427

Monitoring of V455 Andromedae in support of HST observations, issued 2010 October 5

  • Requested by: Dr. Paula Szkody (U. of Washington)
  • Requested duration: Through 2010 October 23
  • Purpose of request: monitor to ensure it remains in quiescence
  • Magnitude of object: V=16.0
  • Related information: Alert Notice 423 and Alert Notice 426 [Note: this campaign was originally announced 2010 August 30 with observtions requested through 2010 September 20, but was rescheduled due to problems with the HST spacecraft on the observation date]

Photometry of Edwin Hubble's first Cepheid in M31, issued 2010 July 16

Multiwavelength observations of SS Cygni, issued 2010 April 15

Photometry of the 2010 GK Persei outburst, issued 2010 March 8

  • Requested by: Dr. Phil Evans (Univ. of Leicester, UK)
  • Requested duration: through current outburst
  • Purpose of request: Noteworthy event, Multiwavelength support
  • Magnitude of object: V ~ 10-12
  • Related information: Special Notice #198

Request for observations of KT Eri (Nova Eri 2009), issued 2010 January 20

  • Requested by: Dr. Julian Osborne (Univ. of Leicester, UK)
  • Requested duration: through current outburst
  • Purpose of request: Noteworthy event, Multiwavelength support
  • Magnitude of object: V ~ 8 at maximum, currently V ~ 11.5 (slow nova)
  • Related information: Special Notice #189

Long-term monitoring of the suspected white dwarf binary V1412 Aql, issued 2009 February 26

  • Requested by: Dr. Arlo Landolt (LSU)
  • Requested duration: Through October 2010
  • Purpose of request: Nightly monitoring, rapid time series if eclipse is observed
  • Magnitude of object: V=15.75 (eclipses to V>19.0)
  • Related information: Special Notice #148

Monitoring of the Recurrent Nova U Scorpii, issued 2008 January 22, concluded 2010 April 9

Long-term photometric campaign on the Luminous Blue Variable P Cygni, issued 2008 November 4

  • Requested by: Bernd Hanisch and Ernst Pollman (BAV)
  • Requested duration: Open-ended
  • Purpose of request: Correlation between photometric data and spectroscopic data
  • Magnitude of object: V ~ 4.5
  • Related information: Special Notice 131 and Campaign Page

ASAS182612: A New Eclipsing Cepheid, issued 2007 June 8

  • Requested by: Dr. Arne Henden (AAVSO)
  • Requested duration: Open-ended
  • Purpose of request: Long-term monitoring in BVRcIc filters
  • Magnitude of object: V=11.0-12.0
  • Related information: Alert Notice 351
Page Editor: Matthew Templeton
Last Updated: February 7, 2012 - 11:37am
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