From: "Dirk Terrell" The AAVSO eclipsing binary group has Dirk Terrel to guide them. This is the >best example I can think of. He has the uncanny ability to separate the >wheat from the chaff; and that's a good thing considering how many new >eclipsers are and will be discovered by ongoing and future surveys. But for >the EB team, after very rudimentary information Dirk can say with a great >deal of confidence, "yes, this is worthy of further investigation" or "naw, >its just another W UMa, move on". Thank you Mike for those kind words. I am glad to know that I'm making a positive contribution to the community. >I'd really like to see the same kind of guidance for CVs, LPVs, Cephieds, RR >Lyr and other unusual objects. It comes down to having the right people >guiding the observers. My feeling is _"We are the AAVSO for Christ's sake!, >we should have on staff or be associated with the best authorities in these >matters...period". The truth is we aren't quite there yet. If we realize the >vision of our new Director and the visions of the talented people on Council >and in the membership, we WILL get there. But this needs to be a priority, >or it won't get done. I too would like to see more professional astronomers involved with the AAVSO and I know Arne does too. It can be time consuming but for me, it has definitely been a rewarding experience. Perhaps we could also approach this from the other direction: have amateurs learn more about the astrophysics involved with these objects so that they can understand what we are trying to figure out about these objects. I think a combination of "face time" and Internet interaction would do it. It would be time consuming and wouldn't appeal to everyone, but it might serve the purpose of getting a few AAVSOers up to speed enough to be able to guide others. Just thinking about this off the cuff, I can see doing a couple of weeks per year together in a traditional classroom setting (perhaps before/after the AAVSO meetings) and also Internet work in between (combining theory and observation). As I said, that might be too costly for a lot of people in terms of time and perhaps money. I'd be willing to take a couple of weeks of vacation time to come and lead classes on things like stellar structure and evolution, stellar atmospheres, binary stars, analysis of eclipsing/spectroscopic binaries, computational astrophysics and introduction to astrophysics. If there are people who want to learn, I will come teach. Dirk _______________________________________________