Teams / Southern Gems

Southern Gems

Citizen Sky

The goal of Southern Gems is to identify 10 variable stars viewable from the Southern Hemisphere that are bright enough to see naked eye. We will be trying to find many types of variables and variables spread across the sky so that some are visible for each season of the year. These stars will be used to create a 10 Star Tutorial for the Southern Hemisphere similar to that of the current 10 Star Tutorial, which is mainly stars visible to the Northern Hemisphere. A knowledge of the constellations and variable stars in the Southern Hemisphere would be valuable for our project. Members of this team are from Astronomers Without Borders, but we welcome others who could contribute to our project, and it is not a requirement that all be members of AWB.

Southern Gems Team Update

By starladyjoan on December 30, 2010 - 11:39am
Teams:

Dear Southern Gem Teammates,
Now that 2010 is coming to a close, I would like to take this opportunity to tell all of you how proud I am of this awesome team and our accomplishments. We have published a great tutorial that can be used by people in the Southern Hemisphere and we have forged friendships here too. For me, it is a wonderful experience working with all of you.
At this point, Julio and Sebastian are working on a translation of the tutorial in Spanish, and Marcelo Souza and Jonatas are translating it into Portuguese. These documents will make it much easier for people in Central and South America to participate in variable star observing. We will publish those two documents soon.Read more

The tutorial was 100000000

By Luis Fernando Sod... on December 13, 2010 - 4:01pm
Teams:

Hello friends!

Congratulations on the tutorial was very good. We will attack him now team.

Hugs,

Luís Fernando Sodré Gomes.Read more

Southern Gems Light Curves via VStar

By david_benn on December 5, 2010 - 8:37am
Teams:

Hi all

Joan asked whether I could say something about VStar in the context of Southern Gems. I'll start by saying how you can add a new "Star Group" to VStar.

When you select "New Star from AAVSO Database" from the File drop-down menu or click the corresponding toolbar icon, the dialog box shows a "Group" menu which defaults to having one entry: Citizen Sky "10 Stars". The "Star" drop-down menu below that allows you to choose from any of the 10 Star Tutorial stars, in order to view data pertaining to that star.

The Southern Gems 10 Stars plus one tutorial shows the light curve for alpha Orionis. If you would like to view the light curve of this or any other Southern Gems star, you can just enter one of the star names into the "Other Star" text box in the "New Star from AAVSO Database" dialog box. But, it would be nicer to select a star from a group called "Southern Gems".Read more

Important Resources

By david_benn on December 5, 2010 - 7:40am
Teams:

This page documents links to key Southern Gems resources.Read more

10 Stars + One Tutorial is here!

By jvannini on December 2, 2010 - 10:30pm
Teams:

Hello,

after many reviews, here is the final version of the "10 Stars + One" tutorial for the Southern Hemisphere Observers.

Clear skies!Read more

Information!

By Luis Fernando Sod... on November 6, 2010 - 1:59pm
Teams:

Hello friends,

What would be the prediction of the tutorial is ready? Because I am new to the team and I'm still Abtu.

Once you leave will be posted on the main page?

Big hugs to all,

Way to go, in that its clean.

Luiz Fernando Gomes SodréRead more

Just Checking In with the Team

By starladyjoan on October 29, 2010 - 10:59am
Teams:

Hi Southern Gems Teammates,
I am right now in a meeting of the AAVSO in Boston and having a short break. I just wanted to let you know I have not forgotten our mission. I am waiting for Aaron Price to do a couple of pages for our tutorial. He is defending his doctorate thesis in a couple of days so our project has to take a back seat for a little bit. But, don't worry! It will get done and we will continue as soon as I get this. Meanwhile, feel free to begin to use the charts that Sebastian has sent to begin observing any of our stars.
David Benn joined us on Skype here at the conference and talked about VStar. Julio Vannini and I met last a while ago in Boston and had a wonderful day with Robert Naeye, the Editor in Chief of Sky and Telescope. I hope I will someday meet each and every one on this awesome team.
Cheers,
JoanRead more

Initial pages for the Tutorial

By jvannini on October 9, 2010 - 2:55pm
Teams:

Hello dear friends,

Here are the initial pages for our tutorial, depicting Alpha Orionis as our tutorial star.

Formats available for Open Office and MS Word.

Notes:

- Compared with the original "10 Stars Tutorial", frontpage is not included. That would show the Team's presentation or whatever information is required to introduce the project.

- Page 2, point 7: note the "#". That's meant for the page number describing the observation procedure. I leave that open in the case that there are changes in the pages order.

Please add your comments unders this thread :)

Clear skies!Read more

New Team Member

By starladyjoan on October 7, 2010 - 1:51pm
Teams:

Hi Southern Gems Teammates,
We have a new member of our team. He is Luis Fernando Sodre Gomes from Campos dos Goytacazes in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Luis is a student of Marcelo Souza. Welcome to the team, Luis. We are hoping the tutorial will be finished VERY SOON and members can begin to use it.
Cheers,
JoanRead more

This tutorial is about ready to go!!!!

By starladyjoan on October 1, 2010 - 10:01pm
Teams:

Hello Southern Gem Teammates,
It's good to see some action here again after a little bit of a stall. Glad to see you are already observing some of our stars, David, and thanks, Sebastian, for responding to David's questions. Julio has the first pages of the tutorial finished except for editing a couple of places. He has promised that he will post those pages this weekend. Once he posts them, please look them over and make any comments as soon as possible. If they meet with the team's approval, we will send all of the pages of the tutorial to Jonatas, who will put the whole thing into one big pdf file. Then it will be ready to go.
At that point, we will ask our translators to take the document and make their magic in Portuguese and in Spanish. And we will begin to publicize our tutorial. Be thinking of how we can get this out to as many possible participants as possible. Here is a good place for your ideas.
Any thoughts from any of you out there?
Cheers,
JoanRead more

zeta Phoenicis and kappa Pavonis

By david_benn on October 1, 2010 - 10:52am
Teams:

Hi all

Since the second Citizen Sky workshop, I've been submitting observations (via http://www.citizensky.org/submitdata/visual) of Eta Aquliae, a star that is on both our list and the 10-star tutorial list.

I'm getting hooked on visual variable star observing!

I've started turning my attention to other stars on our list, in particular, zeta Phoenicis and kappa Pavonis for a couple of reasons:

a. They are both nice and high in the sky from my Australian location right now.
b. Neither of these stars has much data in the AAVSO International Database (AID). zet Phe has just 3 observations recorded in the AID, while kap Pav has about 70.

zet Phe has a period of around 1.6698 (e.g. see VSX and our list). I wonder where the data is that was used to determine that? I haven't read much of this 1950 paper concerning zeta Phe yet:Read more

Southern Gems Tutorial Nears Completion!!!

By starladyjoan on September 23, 2010 - 11:06pm
Teams:

Hi Sebastian and Other Southern Gem Teammates,
The tutorial is nearly finished and as soon as it is finished, we will post it here for people to check out and make any additions or corrections that anyone might find. Sorry we have had a long wait, but sometimes personal situations and jobs make it difficult to get things finished as planned. We are definitely on track now though, and you should see the results very soon. Thank you all for being patient.
I believe that you have already sent all the star charts to Jonatas, Sebastian. Is that correct?
The first pages of our tutorial will be finished very soon. Then, after the team gets a chance to look over everything, we will make it into a pdf and send it to those who will be translating into Spanish and Portuguese.
Then we will begin getting the word out through Citizen Sky and any other methods we can find, so that people can begin using it.Read more

Tutorial

By Sebastian on September 23, 2010 - 10:52pm
Teams:

Hi, guys,
is the tutorial progressing?
When it's finished, remember to pass a copy so the Spanish speakers can make the translation.

Best wishes to all,
Sebastian.Read more

Addition to "submit your visual observation" for Southern Gems

By david_benn on September 23, 2010 - 10:38am
Teams:

Once our tutorial is in place, we may want to consider requesting additions to the list of stars on this page:

http://www.citizensky.org/submitdata/visual

Regards,

DavidRead more

To Our Southern Gem Teammates

By starladyjoan on September 5, 2010 - 9:25am
Teams:

Hi Southern Gem Teammates,
David, PJ, and I have been attending the Citizen Sky Workshop here in San Francisco and letting the world know all about our wonderful team and what we've been doing. I really so much wish that all of our team could be here with us. It has been a fun and inspiring workshop, and especially fun to get to know teammates here in a different setting. Today is the last day of the workshop, and I wanted to let all of you know that I am thinking of you. I know we will have the rest of our tutorial finished soon and ready to translate. I am very proud of all of you!

Best Wishes to All of you,
JoanRead more

a star for January

By alan plummer on August 30, 2010 - 6:19pm
Teams:

Hi all

Please accept my appologies for my lack of recent input. I have been - and am - very busy with work. Congratulations to all on the achievements so far.

I am writing my column very soon for the January issue of Australian Sky and Telescope. From our list I've allready done L Car, R Dor,ETA Aql. From outside our list I did S Scl for December.

I might write about R Car or Beta Dor for January. Of course I'll mention the Southern Gems.

Comment?

Alan Plummer.Read more

Southern Gems Team Update

By starladyjoan on August 29, 2010 - 5:56pm
Teams:

Dear Southern Gems Teammates,
Very early on Tuesday morning I will be leaving for San Francisco and will be out there for a week. During that time I will be visiting some friends at Astronomical Society of the Pacific from NASA Night Sky Network and from Sept 2-5 I will be attending the Citizen Sky Workshop. Our team member David Benn will also be there explaining about VStar and teaching people how to use it, and PJ (Spaceblanket) will also be there.
I will have internet access while I'm there, so we can keep working as usual to try to finish our tutorial. If you have any questions, just ask and if I don't answer, I'm sure someone else on the team who is in the know, will answer.Read more

New VStar release and the star groups feature

By david_benn on August 26, 2010 - 9:58am
Teams:

Hi all

As promised recently, the latest VStar release allows you to add groups of stars of your own choosing. For example, you could add groups by type (e.g. cepheids, cataclysmics, ...) or say, Southern Gems. The Citizen Sky 10-star group is the default one and can't be deleted. If you wanted to create a Southern Gems group, you would go to the Star Groups tab of the Preferences dialog, click the "Add Group & Stars" button, enter the name of the group (e.g. Southern Gems) and a comma separated list of stars:

X Sgr, W Sgr, eta Aql, kappa Pav, zet Phe, beta Dor, V Pup, alpha Ori, R Dor, l Car, R Car

(or you can use alf Ori instead). After clicking the OK button, VStar will ask you to enter your Citizen Sky login details if you have not already loaded a dataset from the AAVSO International Database during the current VStar session. Then VStar will check each star in the list, retrieve its unique ID, and cache the details.Read more

We need to select the main star for the tutorial

By jvannini on August 21, 2010 - 3:34pm
Teams:

Hello fellow Southern Gems members!

I believe we must decide about what star to choose as the main star of our tutorial.

Epsilon Aurigae was selected originally due its particular behavior and as a good star for starting the proyect, but as for the main reason of our tutorial, we need a star that is visible with no problem from the Southern Hemisphere. Epsilon Aurigae is too low over the horizon for places like Santiago de Chile and Buenos Aires, Argentina. (about 10 degrees in altitude).

For personal experience, I've found difficult to see Polaris from my city or neighborhood at a latitude of 12 degrees North. I must go to a open field if I want to see it and align my telescope.

Discussing the topic with Joan and Sebastian, we believe Alpha Orionis may turn into a very good candidate for replacing Epsilon Aurigae. Betelgeuse is visible in a better way than Eps Aurigae. Plus, at original tutorial, we already have charts for that star, containing the comparisson stars.Read more

PDF Updated for 10 star plus 1 tutorial

By starladyjoan on August 18, 2010 - 1:58pm
Teams:

Dear Southern Gem Teammates,
Here is a corrected version of the star table for our tutorial. Again, please check it out and see if any other errors are here. I am attaching it below. Thanks to all the help in clarifying things and in fixing them.
Cheers,
JoanRead more

Southern Gems

Wiki pages

My Teams

Not a member of any groups.

Powered by Drupal