analysis

The AAVSO & Citizen Sky have formally issued a Call for Papers for articles about epsilon Aurigae, similar stars and techniques for bright star observations. This will be the capstone for the Citizen Sky project and much help is available for those new to scholarly publication. Read more

Dr. Elizabeth Griffin, an esteemed astronomer at the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics, recently contributed a forum post about her analysis of hundreds of spectra from the 1956 and 1983 eclipses.

The following bio for Dr. Griffin is from this abstract to a talk about data security she gave in Maerch, 2011:Read more

As the new year rolls around, it's time to start the next phase of the project. Thus far we have focused on data collection, not it's time to focus on the rest of the scientific process...Read more

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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?