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Rebecca
The epsilon Aurigae Simulator is Now Online!
We've just posted a new tool on the Citizen Sky web site. Created by colleagues from Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum, the epsilon Aurigae Simulator allows the user to manipulate various parameters of the system and view the resulting lightcurve.
Brian has written a tutorial, which offers a quick introduction to the simulator. This is a great chance to read up on all of the recent results on eps Aur and use them to model your own version of the system. Have fun!
VStar Light Curve Analysis Software is Now Online!
A new, open-source data visualization and analysis tool called VStar is now ready for download. It is the product of a Citizen Sky programming team led by David Benn - VStar Software Development Team. We are very proud of VStar and thank the team for the many, many hours of hard work that have gone into creating this tool.
A brief description, some simple instructions, and a download link are available on the VStar page. Read more
Project Update
Hello Citizen Skyers!
It has been a while, so I thought I’d update everyone on a few components of the Citizen Sky Project...
The eclipse is now well underway and Dr. Bob has been doing a great job keeping us updated on all of the "ins and outs" of the decline. If you haven't already, read Dr. Bob's blog posts for the latest on the eclipse! Read more
Beginners' Online Chat Transcript Posted
The chat transcript to our Nov. 18 online Beginner's Chat has been posted. The chat was for those Citizen Sky participants who are relatively new to astronomy and/or the Citizen Sky project. Below is the original announcement:
Everyone is invited to an online "Beginners' Chat" to be held this Wednesday, November 18 at 8 pm Eastern (7 pm Central, 6 pm Mountain, 5 pm Pacific). The goal of the chat is to answer questions about Citizen Sky, epsilon Aurigae, and/or astronomy in general. The tone will be tailored to new participants in the project so this is a great chance to find out more about the project without feeling overwhelmed by the scale of the project.Read more
Two New Ways to View Data!
You can now view up to the minute data on the Citizen Sky Website for any of the 10 stars from the 10 Star Tutorial! You have the choice of plotting a light curve or displaying the individual data points in a list. Our web developer Kate has added some neat extra features like the ability to highlight your own observations and the ability to plot means on the light curve. You can find these new features in the "Data" tab under "View."
We have some interesting things coming down the pipeline in the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned for announcements!Read more
Videos from the First Citizen Sky Workshop are Now Online
In August 2009 Citizen Sky held a workshop in Chicago on epsilon Aurigae and observing. Most of the talks during this workshop were videotaped. The first set of videos are now online along with their corresponding presentation files. If you missed the workshop or if you would like to revisit your favorite talk, check it out. More videos are on the way, so stay tuned!
Event Listings on Citizen Sky
I am happy to announce a new feature on the Citizen Sky website!
Participants can now create and search event listings. This feature can be found under the "Communicate" tab on the homepage. Events can be searched for by date, country, state, or event title. Feel free to use this feature to post any Citizen Sky or Astronomy related public events!Read more
Form your Teams!
I am happy to announce that the first phase of the Team section of the Citizen Sky website is now up and running!
You can start your own team or join an existing team. (You can search existing teams by keyword or see a list of all teams.) Team leaders have the ability to make team membership open to anyone, or if they are looking for something very specific, team leaders can moderate the joining process. Once the team has all of the necessary skills represented in its membership teams can even be closed.
Members of each team have the ability to create team posts. These posts can be public (anyone can read them) or private (only other members of your team can read them.) Read more
It's Official!
Up until this point the Citizen Sky project has been operating with preliminary funding approval from the National Science Foundation (NSF.) In recent weeks we have been dealing with the last bits of "red tape" in the official approval process. Around lunchtime today we received word from the NSF that the final stages of processing have been completed and that the Citizen Sky grant has been officially awarded!
We are very excited to continue our progress on the Citizen Sky Project with the official support of the National Science Foundation!Read more
Submit Your Non-Visual Data to Citizen Sky!
You can now submit your PEP, CCD, and DLSR observations via the Citizen Sky website. Simply click on "Submit" and "Non-Visual" under the Data tab to access the non-visual submission form.
Submitting data via the Citizen Sky website instantly and permanently archives your data in the AAVSO International Database (AID.) Data from the AID are available to anyone at anytime and are frequently used in major research projects. So in effect if you submit your data to Citizen Sky they become available to any researcher out there who would like to use them!Read more
