Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Thu, 04/04/2013 - 14:57
AAVSO Alert Notice 482 announces an intriguing new observing campaign to study planetary system development. The AAVSO's role is to monitor three northern bright stars (V=7 and V=9) for variability (non-variability, actually) to help eliminate stellar variability as the cause of dust variations seen in evolving debris disks around these stars. If stellar variability were to be excluded, a very likely cause would be collisions among asteroid-size chunks of rubble in the disk! Please see the Alert Notice for a more detailed explanation and instructions.
Many thanks and good observing - Elizabeth Waagen, AAVSO HQ
Right now BD 20+107 is basically a daytime target (about 20 degress from the sun), and the other two are early evening low elevation twilight targets. This Fall they will be much easier to observe. We probably won't get many measurements over the next few weeks...