[vsnet-chat 3640] Overobserving

[Peter Kroll <pk@stw.tu-ilmenau.de>]

Hello observers,

in my opinion, there is no way to "overobserve" a star. On the contrary!
You can much learn about your own observational accuracy and the stars'
unexpected behaviour:

1. Having many data points allows much better to critical analyse
systematic trends and biases in an observers data. If a star changes it
brightness slowly, as it is the case for Miras, you can better judge
your own scattering in the data when observing day by day instead of
once a week. It is also a more profound basis in comparing different
observers (... in order to get "nice" light-curves, finally).

2. Many observers seem to be sure that Miras do only show maxima and
minima with changing magnitude and coming earlier or later. If you wish
to detect only this then, of course, one observation per week may be
sufficient. But, who knows, what kinds of phenomena hitherto unknown are
waiting for detection? Remember flaring Miras! If you look out of the
window only around noon you'd probably be convinced the Sun shines'
around the clock!

Thus, there are not "too many" observation, at best "too less". 

Peter Kroll
Sonneberg Observatory

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