[Aavso-photometry] Campaigns update, February 2008

[Matthew Templeton]

Hello everyone,

This is a brief, mid-month update on a few of the observing campaigns that 
were and are running.

First, the most recent of the HST support campaigns (see Alert Notice 
Number 366, January 18, 2008) was completed, and HST safely completed its 
observations of SDSS133948.  On behalf of Dr. Szkody and the science team, 
thanks to everyone who participated -- great job, everyone!  Again, it 
wouldn't have happened without your observations.

The observing campaign on U Gem and SS Cyg (Alert Notice Number 360) 
continues, and your observations have been closely monitored.  Our 
MyNewsFlash notification system is working perfectly, and we are ready and 
waiting for the next outburst of either star to occur (here's hoping we 
catch U Gem).

The observing campaign on Blazars (Alert Notice Number 353) also 
continues.  Several of these objects are very faint and very difficult to 
observe, but observations (even single data points) of these will be 
helpful.  As an example, 1ES 1627+40.2 seems to show hints of elevated 
activity, and optical monitoring of this source may provide some new 
information.  Some of the brighter ones are doing interesting things too. 
3C 66A continues to rumble around the threshold magnitude of 14.0, and the 
WEBT project continues to monitor this source.  The blazar W COM currently 
shows some unusual activity at high energies, so optical observations of 
this object are strongly encouraged.  This is a big project, so thanks to 
everyone who has participated so far!

We recently announced two very long-term campaigns on U Sco (Alert Notice 
367) and QX Pup (Arne's project, see its news page for more information, 
at http://www.aavso.org/news/qxpup.shtml ), and hope everyone can 
participate -- whether it's a little or a lot, anything you can do can 
provide important results.

And I'd like to take a moment to mention the High Energy Network. We had 
upper limits on GRB 080205 by Stefano Sposetti published in the GCN 
Circulars last week (GCN Circular #7262), so thanks to Stefano for those 
important observations.  Second, the paper describing Arto Oksanen's 
discovery and photometry of GRB 071010B should be appearing in eJAAVSO 
shortly, and thanks (and congratulations!) to Arto for that study.

If anyone has questions about AAVSO Campaigns -- or have ideas for one -- 
please feel free to contact me.

Best wishes, & clear skies,

Matthew Templeton
AAVSO