Arne A. Henden

Summer (at least in the Northern Hemisphere) has come to a close again, and it is time for an update. In the last issue, I commented on the beauty of freshly falling snow; this time I get to complain about this summer's heat and humidity! Boston can have both, but thankfully, it usually only lasts for a couple of days before cooler weather cycles through. As an observational astronomer, I'm always thinking about weather, and always looking at the sky when I leave my office (even though I no longer have a local telescope with which to observe). In fact, it is fun to go to an AAS meeting and watch astronomers as they leave the conference building - half will look up (the observers) and half will be reading material in their hands (the theoreticians).

I recently returned from New Zealand, where I was the guest of the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand (RASNZ), its variable-star section, and many local astronomical societies. My travel down was largely paid out of the RASNZ travel fund, and travel around New Zealand to speak to many societies was paid from the Gifford-Eiby Memorial Lectureship Fund and by Canterbury University. I gratefully appreciate these travel grants, and also the enormous time and effort that Pauline and Brian Loader (the treasurer and then-President of the RASNZ) put in organizing the various society talks and finding a plane schedule between the many cities involved. The local organizers (Grant Christie, Gary Sparks, Marilyn Head, Steve Butler, Ian Crumpton, John Hearnshaw, Alan Gilmore, and the Loaders) went out of their way to make our stays enjoyable.

The RASNZ variable-star section is undergoing reorganization, as its past Director (Frank Bateson) has retired. The AAVSO is giving the Australasia area as much help as possible, from offering to host their observation database and providing observing manuals and campaign targets to participating in any international variable-star meetings that they might organize. We had a small grant to bring two CCD systems to the RASNZ meeting, and the RASNZ is selecting observers to give these cameras to on long-term loan. I gave a CCD workshop, and Tom Richards has given another, very different, CCD workshop at the recent Australian NACAA conference. Together, I think the two presentations will encourage more CCD observers among their very active community.

AAVSO Director Arne Henden (L) accepts the first Charles Butterworth Award from BAA President Richard Miles.

I also met in May with the British Astronomical Association, giving an invited talk on pro-am collaboration, and with their Variable Star Section meeting a few days later, talking about my favorite star (V838 Mon). I was grateful to the BAAVSS for funding the majority of my travel costs. I was also honored at the VSS meeting to be given the first Charles Butterworth Award. The citation reads: "This, the first Charles Butterworth Award, was presented to Dr. Arne Henden, Director AAVSO, on 3rd June 2006 by the Variable Star Section of the British Astronomical Association, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the observation of variable stars." It is a very nice, unique award (mine is a square of slate with a painted representation of V838 Mon on its front), and I hope they continue to give it out in the future. The BAA and the AAVSO are planning on holding a joint meeting in England during the summer of 2008, and we will announce preliminary plans as soon as we know the details.

I was in Belgium for a science meeting in May, and met with the Belgian/Dutch variable star societies. I gave a paper at their joint meeting, and then talked in more detail with the officers of their societies. I think we will have closer ties with our European neighbors based on such productive meetings. It was great to spend some time with Patrick Wils, Tonny Vanmunster, Erwin van Ballegoij, and others whom I've conversed with by email but never seen in person. It never ceases to amaze me how capable and enthusiastic our observers are, and how gracious they are when hosting visitors.

I was very pleased this past month to see 25,000 PEP observations added to our International Database. Sara Beck worked long and hard to clear up the many discrepancies in the dataset, and the results show both her effort and the excellent photometry coming from our PEP observers. We expect to get the remainder of the observations checked and loaded into the database when Sara returns from her summer sailing (she owns a Friendship Sloop, the Flying Jib; a really fun older wooden sailboat, and takes it along the New England coast every year). We also want to create a better method of entering PEP data online, and performing the photometric pipeline here at HQ. Once we get organized, then we will be working with PEP members to select a Chair for that committee, and providing some new targets for the observers.

Six months between newsletters is really too long. So much takes place at Headquarters that it would take pages to cover everything. I think there will be some discussion elsewhere in this newsletter of several events, but the highlights would include: the new automated chart plotter; the Variable Star Index (VSX); the Blue and Gold observer's section of the website; the new MySQL database and its new tools; and a couple of new Java programs written by Kate Davis and Sara Beck that promise to make Headquarters even more efficient in processing observations. Things aren't slowing down much, and I often feel like I'm skiing down a Black Diamond course - somewhat under control, but having an exhilarating ride. I hope you feel the same way - variable star observing is fun!

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