Blog

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

Citizen Sky participants can now subscibe to email notifications of forum and blog posts. 

You can add subscriptions by clicking on "My profile" in your personal Menu (on the right side of the page) and then clicking on the "Notifications" tab within your profile.  You can create subscriptions based on a particular thread, content type, or author.  In addition you can specify how frequently you would like to receive email notifications.  You can also add subscriptions by following the links at the bottom of any blog or forum post.Read more

Dr. Bob's recent post makes one thing perfectly clear: Now is the time to start observing! The eclipse can start any day now and you'll want to get your baseline data in now. Epsilon Aurigae rises around 1am.  Most so-called "normal" people will be sleeping, so that makes your observation even more valuable since we will have such little data.  You wanted to be a real astronomer, here is your chance. You gotta sacrifice some Zzzz's like all astronomers,Read more

The Citizen Sky Workshop I in Chicago last week went well. A special thanks to Rebecca Turner for doing an outstanding job on coordinating Workshop I. She is a real pro at this.
 

Also a big thank you to the Adler staff for helping make everything go smoothly.

Bob Stencel provided us with an excellent overview of epsilon Aurigae and even I learned a few new things. Great job Dr. Bob!
 

In addition to any posting on the AAVSO web site of the two Workshops I held, I will be posting the two PowerPoint Presentations on the Epsilon Aurigae Campaign web site.Read more

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

The Simostronomy Blog reported live from the first day of the first Citizen Sky Workshop this week at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. Also, Robin Leadbeater has reported some new interesting spectroscopic results from Aug. 6!

Read more

We created a silly 6 minute video that describes epsilon Aurigae and the Citizen Sky project using diagrams made from Lite Brite pegs. Check it out and feel free to repost to other forums!Read more

It appears that through the end of July 2009 epsilon Aurigae is still very bright.

The following is from data submitted to the Campaign for July 2009.

Richard Miles

Golden Hill Observatory

Location:  Stourton Caundle, Dorset, England

Latitude/Longitude/Altitude (ASL):  West 2.405 deg, North 50.931 degRead more

A transcript of the spectroscopy chat with Jeff Hopkins is now online. The chat was on Thursday at 3pm EDT (-4UT). The featured topic was amateur spectroscopy, primarily of epsilon Aurigae.

The Sky & Telescope web site has an article on Robin Leadbeater's spectroscopic observation of first contact. Note: you can now download Dr. Stencel's S&T article at no cost.

Good work Robin!

Jeff Read more