Observing

Photometry with DSLR cameras is a fairly new for amateur astronomers and can yield a lot of high-quality data in a fairly short time period.  Unlike single channel photometry or CCD photometry, few DSLR camera owners have an astronomical filter set handy, therefore the analysis of data from the camera can be tricky, but the DSLR Documentation and Reduction Team has gone a long way to simplify the process by creating tutorials for various photometric analysis software packages, and an Excel worsheet to aid in data analysis.Read more

Or: How do you know how well you know what you know?

One of the greatest challenges of science is knowing how reliable our discoveries are. Ultimately, we want to say not only what we understand about the universe, but also the certainty or uncertainty of that understanding.

If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, with how much statistical precision can we conclude that it’s a duck?Read more

10-Day Light Curve of

300-Day Light Curve of

	Your Observation(s)		V+Visual 10-day average
	Visual Observation		1-sigma Error Bar
	V validated		V prevalidated
	B validated		B prevalidated
	R validated		R prevalidated
	J validated		J prevalidated
	H validated		H prevalidated

 

	Your Observation(s)		V+Visual 10-day average
	Visual Observation		1-sigma Error Bar
	V validated		V prevalidated
	B validated		B prevalidated
	R validated		R prevalidated
	J validated		J prevalidated
	H validated		H prevalidated

 

• Learn more about light curves
• Customize this light curve
• Submit another observation.

10-Day Light Curve of

300-Day Light Curve of

	Your Observation(s)
	Visual Observation
	V validated		V prevalidated

 

	Your Observation(s)		V+Visual 10-day average
	Visual Observation		1-sigma Error Bar
	V validated		V prevalidated

 

• Learn more about light curves
• Customize this light curve
• Submit another observation.

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While the goal of the AAVSO has been mainly concerned with magnitude determination of stars and star systems, spectroscopy is now on the threshold to add significant value to the AAVSO.

Photometry takes the pulse of a star or star system, where spectroscopy examines its soul.Read more

Observing a variable star takes practice. We have designed a training program that begins with stars that are easy to find and observe. Slowly the stars become more challenging as you go down the list. By the time you reach Epsilon Aurigae at the bottom of the list, you’ll be an expert variable star observer contributing real data to professional scientists!Read more

There are three main stages for making an observation of a variable star:

1. Finding the star
2. Estimating its brightness
3. Submitting the estimation to the AAVSO

Finding the Star

It's easy to find one star in the sky - the Sun! The rest of the stars? Not so much. At first finding a variable star can take some time. However, soon it becomes second nature. What may take 45 minutes your first time outside will eventually take just a few seconds.

Again, we recommend newbies start with the 10 Star Tutorial. It spells it out for you pretty easily and includes all the charts you need.Read more