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Re: [AAVSO-DIS] Assignment of under observed stars Dear Tom, > And people > have different tastes and drives that lead them to do different things. It's > the same in variable stars - Rod Stubbings finds an outburst visually (good > on him, I couldn't stand doing that), Peter Nelson and others then do long > time-series CCD photometry on it (a million miles from what turns Rod on). Yes, there are very significant exceptions. There are many people who are doing their ways and greatly contribute variable star astronomy (yes, here I speak of "contribution to variable star astronomy"; there are naturally much larger variery of astronomy one can enjoy and contribute to). However, even in the field of variable star astronomy, I have encountered a number of people, who had been steadily observing variable stars or monitoring outbursts, change their fashion once they become renowned in some aspect. The net cosequence has been a continous removal of (a significant fraction of) variable star observers, who have been indispensable to the variable star community. Think of the number of observers who have been monitoring outbursts; there were much more people even ten years ago. Have CCD monitoring substituted their role? -- probably not yet. I have once discussed this matter with Janet Mattei, and she also worried about this, and encouraged to "keep observing variable stars". This is truly a complex issue, and is a global matter for the variable star community. If all people are heading in the same direction at "more important things", "more science", or "more efficiency", there will be left unfilled holes (no longer a niche) of our century-long activities in variable star science. On the contrary to your supposed diversity of astronomy, the interests of the people look like to be becoming increasingly homogenized. Regards, Taichi Kato
Return to the Powerful Daisaku Nogami
vsnet-adm@kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp
