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...

The 5-Star Analysis Tutorial is meant as a complement to the 10-Star Observing Tutorial. Once you have an idea about how to make a variable star estimate, the new analysis tutorial shows you ways you can combine your data with other observers to uncover details about the star. It covers the basics of light curve analysis such as plotting mean curves and error values. It also covers phase diagrams, which are a way to combine sparse data into one single light curve to figure out the shape of a star's curve (among other things). Finally, it very briefly dips into the world of period analysis, which one would use to determine the period(s) in a star's long term light curve. That is perhaps the single most important step in figuring out what is going on with a variable star.

After describing those elements of basic data analysis, the tutorial then describes how you can use VStar to load data on five different variable stars to put each of those analysis techniques into practice.

If this interests you, there are lots of variable star light curves out there that have not been analyzed. Form a team and we can provide you with such a light curve. You can analyze the data and make a prediction about the type of variable star it is. If you want to go further, you can even write a paper for the peer-reviewed Journal of the AAVSO. We assign a professional liason to each team. Of course, that liason won't do the work for you, but they will be there to answer questions for you.  And our next workshop will be dedicated to this type of data analysis and paper writing. Details on that shoudl be posted VERY soon.