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Photoelectric Photometry Newsletter
Editor's Message I must apologize for the long silence but, as many of you know, I was busy organizing the first-ever joint meeting of the AAVSO, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. This included a symposium on Amateur-Professional Partnership in Astronomical Research and Education. Then I spent the rest of July preparing for, attending, and recovering from UNISPACE III - the Third UN Conference on the Exploration and Peaceful Uses of Outer Space - held at the UN Centre in Vienna. I attended an International Astronomical Union on Light Pollution (a problem for variable star observers everywhere!) and a Workshop on Capacity-Building in Astronomy and Basic Space Science. How can education be used, in scientifically-developing countries, to prepare them to take part in the exploration of space, and the universe? One way is through the observation of variable stars. In 1996, I raised this suggestion at a UN/ESA Workshop on Basic Space Science, in Bonn, Germany. Earlier this year, AAVSO Director Janet Mattei developed and amplified this suggestion, at another UN/ESA Workshop, in Jordan. The UN is now quite keen on this suggestion; in fact, it was highlighted in a brief report on UNISPACE III in the prestigious science journal Science. The idea is that the observation and analysis of variable stars provides an excellent way to develop and integrate math and science skills. This is the philosophy behind the AAVSO's education project Hands-On Astrophysics. Students in the astronomically-developing countries can start by observing variable stars visually, and by analysing their measurements, along with archival data. They can then progress to acquiring small (typically 0.5m) telescopes, which can be used for photoelectric and CCD photometry. This can be done as part of an international collaboration. In fact, there could be a network of small photometric telescopes in these countries, carrying out research in partnership.
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