Help With the Chart Search Engine

• General
• Designation
• Name
• Type
• Period
• Range
• Spectrum
• Atlas Pages
• Comments
• Available Charts

General

The database, when complete, is a combination of the AAVSO Chart Catalog, the GCVS 4th edition (plus applicable name lists), Downes' living catalog for many CVs, AAVSO bulletin info (for some visual range magnitudes), and some specific information added by AAVSO staff. This database will be made public when completed.

The data displayed in the search engine may not match the data on the chart itself. This is because the chart uses data that was current as of when it was published, whereas the search engine uses data that is (more or less) current as of 2001.

Please note that this database is not complete and will be slowly updated during the first few months of 2002.

Designation

This is the Harvard Designation, as used by the AAVSO in our validation file. It is unique for every star and thus the best way to look for a specific chart.

Name

This is a name given by the star and used in our validation file. It generally consists of one or two capital letters (or greek letter) followed by the 3 character abbreviation of the constellation it lies in. Some notable exceptions are supernovae (typically SN XXXXYY where X is year and Y are letters denoting the order it was discovered - SN 2001aa, SN 2001ab, etc.), unnamed novae (N XXX YY where XXX is the constellation and YY is the year - N CYG 01), suspected variables (VAR XXX YY where XXX is the constellation and YY is the year discovered - VAR MON 02).

Type

The type generally follows the symbols established by the GCVS. Details can be found here.

Period

The period is generally based on the GCVS, Downes & Shara, etc.

Range

Most of these symbols were established by the GCVS. In general:

See also the documents by Kholopov et al. (1985-1988) or Warren(1989).

Spectrum

Again, most of this comes from the GCVS. Here is a note in the GCVS4 documentation regarding spectrum types:

	Spectral  types  are  reported  in the MK system when
        available.    In  cases  where  multiple  types   are
        available, more recent classifications were generally
        preferred,   with   some   account   being  taken  of
        reliability if this  was  possible.

Comments

These are random comments, usually added by an AAVSO staff member. Cross referencing of charts will also show up here, i.e. if the object you are looking for exists on a chart for another star (because of close proximity) it will be mentioned here.

Charts

The mother load and why you are here! The chart scales are listed along with the file type. PostScript files are compressed with PKZIP because of their size. Some new charts are in the PNG or JPG formats because we are moving away from the GIF format (which is proprietary and costs us money to use). The PNG format is supported by all web browsers and all relatively recent art programs. It was adopted as the new Internet standard in graphics compression. JPG has been around for a long while and supported by everything.

Atlas Pages

This is the page number of the AAVSO Variable Star Atlas on which this object exists.

Sequence Info

Help coming soon.