Rod Stubbings is a long-term AAVSO member from Tetoora Road, Victoria, Australia.
Not only he is a prolific observer but he also has made some specific outstanding contributions, and all of them have something in common: they were made visually, that is, with his eyes at the eyepiece, without any help from electronic devices.
In 2012, with the help of Rod's visual observations, we were able to confirm the RR Lyrae nature (and find its period) of SW Crt, that had been previously classified as a red variable.
In May 2025, he visually discovered the eclipses of the dwarf nova V0598 Sco. See his story here.
In 1997, while observing Nova LMC 1995, he thought that he had found a new variable star, but it turned out to be LMC V2671, a well-known long period classical cepheid in the Large Magellanic Cloud. It wasn't so easy to check for the existence of non-GCVS galactic variables in a given field in the pre-VSX era!
In the night of February 16, 2026, at 13.10 UT, while observing the dwarf nova V0754 Hya, Rod finally made it. He found an uncharted 14th mag. star in the field and watched it fade by 2 magnitudes in 4 minutes and then eventually disappear. He thought about a flare and contacted AAVSO HQ to see if we could check. And he was right!
Gaia DR3 data shows a very red star (Gaia DR3 3469884493387859456) with large proper motion at the reported position (see the DESI-Legacy Surveys color image). It has a V mag around 20.6 at quiescence, so invisible for Rod.
He had found a powerful flare on a cool red dwarf.
Right now, without a ZTF-like survey in the South, his visual observations are the only record of variability for this star.
If you want to try catching a flare of this very faint object, you can use the attached chart. But you should keep in mind that you will have to be extremely lucky to succeed!
The object was added to VSX on February 18 and named Stubbings V1.
Rod's 70th birthday is on February 23 so that came as a nice birthday gift.
Happy birthday Rod!