David B. Williams

I'm still a bit dizzy from the Annual Meeting in October. Aside from the disorienting effect of being elevated from 2nd Vice President to President (I've never skipped a grade before), I'm suffering from future shock. The innovation that impressed me most was a live webcam talk and Q&A session with ace variable star observer Gary Poyner in England. There we were, talking with Gary across 3,000 miles of ocean, in real time and at negligible cost. The possibilities for special "guests" at future meetings are mind-boggling.

We also heard more about new programs that will be coming on line from the AAVSO in the coming year. The Automatic Chart Plotter is going to be a boon for observers everywhere, and the Variable Star Registry could change the way the whole variable star community keeps track of variables (an important problem in this era of countless new discoveries).

I reflect on all this with amazement because, with the possible exception of Clint Ford, I may be the only AAVSO member who has served on the Council with three directors. Back in 1968, Margaret Mayall was director of a very different AAVSO. In those days, observers sent in monthly reports on paper forms. I well recall transcribing my nightly observations from the record sheet made at the telescope to index cards, one card for each variable, then at the end of the month preparing my monthly report by copying all the new observations in Harvard Designation order from those index cards onto the monthly report form.

Each evening Margaret took home a batch of reports so that she could hand plot the observations to keep our light curves up to date. If a member dropped by our tiny, rented headquarters, he or she would be recruited to help trim charts. In those days, chart masters were inked on translucent paper, and these masters were sent out for reproduction by the blueprint process. Several charts were produced on each large blueprint sheet, and these charts needed to be cut apart and trimmed to standard 8x10 size with scissors. Like hand-plotting the light curves, chart trimming was a never-ending and time-consuming task.

Janet Mattei was director during my second stint on the Council, and Janet moved the AAVSO into the computer era. In those early digital days, each reported observation had to be recorded from the monthly report form to a punch card. Every year or two, a couple of hundred thousand cards were trucked over to the Center for Astrophysics and run through their big computers, producing data files and light curves. As the punch cards accumulated, they threatened to take over all the space at headquarters. Thankfully, computers evolved rapidly and the punch-card era ended before the staff was pushed out onto the street.

Then came desktop computers, the Internet, and the World Wide Web. Now charts can be downloaded from the AAVSO website, and observations can be reported via the WebObs utility. After more than three decades of reporting observations the old-fashioned way, I still marvel that now I can report an estimate and, a few minutes later, see it plotted with everyone else's observations on the Light Curve Generator.

Our newest director, Arne Henden, is continuing to push the technological envelope to develop new programs to serve our members and the astronomical community. The next few years will bring more changes as the AAVSO keeps pace with the rapid development of variable star astronomy.

The only thing that hasn't changed — and won't change — is the need for high-quality observations and more of them, whether you are a visual, PEP, or CCD observer. It looks like it will be clear tonight. I know what I'll be doing. What about you?

David B. Williams
President

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