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Light Curves for Fun and Profit
New to variable stars and wondering what a light curve is? Sadly, it's not a cool weapon from Star Wars (although I imagine Jedi would find them useful for fighting around corners). I've recently wrote a forum post describing light curves and how to read them. Check it out and post your questions and comments.
Early August at Adler & waiting for photometric eclipse ingress
Adler Planetarium - what a splendid astronomical facility - our compliments to Lucy, Larry, Rebecca, Aaron and the CS/Adler gang for hosting a marvelous first Citizen Sky workshop, Aug. 4-7, 2009. Among the many meeting highlights was a report that appears to clinch the evidence for the existence of a cold disk in the system, a chance to meet with many key participants like Arne Henden, the Citizen Sky senior staff and Jeff Hopkins, Gerry Samolyk, Mike Simonsen - veteran observers, as well as meet the newer participants to the project (Hi PJ, Rhonda, Alice, Barry, Bill, Brian, Mark, Niko...). Hopefully everyone who attended came away with new contacts and ideas that will carry us far.Read more
Looking at the Light Curve II: Hints of an eclipse?
You're sending in more data and it's helping! We have an updated forum post about new evidence for the eclipse in the light curves. What's your say? Is it starting? Read the light curve and make a prediction.
Looking at the Light Curve III: Thar Be an Eclipse
The third post in our series on light curve analysis looks at both recent data and data from previous eclipses to answer the age-old-question: Who shot JR? Has the eclipse started in visual light?
Supergiant Binary Stars - Video from Workshop
The first video from the Chicago Workshop has been posted to the forums. It's a talk about supergiant stars by Dr. Doug Welch. Consider this a sample of much more video coming soon.
New radial velocity measurements w/interesting implications
We have a guest blog article from a coauthor of a recent paper published about epsilon Aurigae. The author describes the system overall for new participants, then describes what they discovered with their radial velocity data. Read more
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
5-Star Analysis Tutorial - As if Observing Wasn't Geeky Enough
When VStar was published, we also published a new 5-Star Analysis Tutorial. This PDF file is meant for those completely new to variable star data analysis. If you have any interest at all in analysis, take a look at this tutorial first to see if anything strikes your fancy. Read on for more...Read more
Apply Now for the Second Citizen Sky Workshop
The second Citizen Sky Workshop will be held Friday-Sunday, September 3-5, 2010 at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. We will kick-off the 3-day workshop with an opening reception and tour on the evening of September 2. The focus of this workshop will be data analysis and scientific paper writing. We will have sessions updating us on the science of epsilon Aurigae, how to use VStar for basic data analysis, how to write papers for peer review, how to choose good research questions, doing literature reviews and much more. We also will have a free showing of the new Citizen Sky planetarium trailer on the California Academy of Science's brand-new planetarium dome.
Visit the wokshop page for a preliminary schedule and application.Read more
Updated version of VStar is now available!
An updated version of the multi-platform, easy-to-use variable star data visualization and analysis tool, VStar, is now available! (To download the new version simply visit the VStar page and click on "Download VStar Now.")
Check out the recent posts by David Benn and Doc Kinne on the VStar Team page for more details on the new release.
If you are unfamiliar with VStar please visit the VStar page for a basic introduction. There you can find out how to download, launch, and use this powerful tool. Happy VStaring!!Read more
