American Association of Variable Star Observers

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Since its founding in 1911,[1] the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) has coordinated, collected, evaluated, analyzed, published, and archived variable star observations made largely by amateur astronomers and makes the records available to professional astronomers, researchers, and educators. These records establish light curves depicting the variation in brightness of a star over time.

Since professional astronomers do not have the time or the resources to monitor every variable star, astronomy is one of the few sciences where amateurs can make genuine contributions to scientific research.[2] The AAVSO International Database currently has over 12 million variable star estimates dating back over 100 years. It receives over 500,000 observations annually from around 2,000 professional and amateur observers.

The AAVSO is also very active in education and public outreach. They routinely hold training workshops for citizen science and publish papers with amateurs as coauthors. They pioneered the modern day model of professionals and amateurs working side-by-side as team members doing data analysis, as opposed to the old model of professionals as mentors to amateurs who simply provide observational assistance. Also, the AAVSO developed the Hands-On Astrophysics curriculum (with support from the National Science Foundation).

The director of the AAVSO for many decades was Janet Mattei, who died in March 2004 of leukemia.[3]

The AAVSO was originally located at the Harvard College Observatory from 1911-1956, then moved around Cambridge before purchasing their first building in 1985 - The Clinton B. Ford Astronomical Data and Research Center. In 2007, the AAVSO purchased and moved into the recently vacated premises of Sky and Telescope magazine.[1]

[edit] Current and former members

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The AAVSO currently has over 2,000 members and observers, with approximately half of them from outside the United States. This list only consists of those with Wikipedia pages.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Saladyga, Michael (October 1999). "The "Pre-Embryonic" State of the AAVSO: Amateur Observers of Variable Stars in the United States >From 1875 to 1911". The Journal of the American Association of Variable Star Observers 27 (2): 154–170. Bibcode: 1999JAVSO..27..154S. 
  2. ^ Ferris, Timothy (2003). Seeing in the Dark: How Amateur Astronomers Are Discovering the Wonders of the Universe. Simon and Schuster. p. 54. ISBN 0684865807. 
  3. ^ Williams, Thomas R.; Willson, Lee Anne (December 2004). "Obituary: Janet Akyüz Mattei, 1943-2004". Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society 36 (5): 1681–1682. Bibcode: 2004BAAS...36.1681W. 
  4. ^ Dorrit Hoffleit "The Maria Mitchell Observatory:For Astronomical Research and Public Enlightenment" JAAVSO Volume30, 2001, p70 http://www.aavso.org/publications/ejaavso/v30n1/62.pdf , where her photograph from 1930 appears
  5. ^ http://www.aavso.org/aavso/history/webhist4.shtml

[edit] External links

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