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Re: [vsnet-chat 6112] (fwd) Re: [vsnet-gcvs 314] (fwd) NMO Campaign [The reference was posted to different lists, but I keep commenting on the original lists to preserve the continuity of the topics]. > > a lot of NEW RESEARCH will be needed. > > Good! We're dying to do it. I still think we need more people like the > CBA's Joe Patterson who actively leads amateur observer campaigns. I > can't help but think that that all of us eager amateurs with CCD's and > BVRI filters couldn't be of more use if we are utilized more > effectively. > [...] Well, this citation can be misleading. Samus's original posting stating that "a lot of NEW RESEARCH will be needed" refers to the homogenous improvement of the GCVS catalog quality, in reponse to a need (by Yoshida-san) for a homogenous multicolor data for individual variable stars. Almost nothing is related to CBA's Joe Patterson (who is primarily working on unfiltered CCD photometry, which is too different from the NEW RESEARCH required in this context; the only thing I am familiar with Joe Patterson in relation to the GCVS was in a negative comment to the GCVS expressed in IBVS 3079 (1987): "Let's Forget DO Dra"). I am not confident whether this issue has been already discussed, but we may possibly discuss on the impact by the CBA itself on the general variable star community. I personally don't want a hundred persons like "CBA's Joe Patterson". If this comes true, there will be left no observers in the AAVSO, or observers will no longer monitor LPVs and other traditional targets; this is because the existence of the CBA is mainly maintained by a continuous removal of visual variable star observers X-) If a hundred different groups start depriving observers from the variable star observers' groups, the AAVSO or the variable star community will collapse! The policy of the VSNET (Collaboration) is different, although some preferred targets overlaps with the CBA. Our policy is "addition" to existing organizations (this is one of the reasons why we keep posting to the AAVSO discussion, devoting our findings to the Astronomer group and the VSOLJ, providing an on-line facility to the AFOEV, etc.), not deprival. I believe this approach was more prevalant and was more faithfully kept even by professional astronomers before the mid-1990's, when some professional astronomers, knowing the "efficiency" of amateur astrnomy campaigns, and disregarding the tradition, started "hunting for observers". The consequence of this introduction by the professional commnity probably needs to be more fully historically reviewed. I would appreciate contructive comments, but I don't appreciate a straightforward comment such as "the CBA is great because it is successful", because such a comment has been repeated everywhere, and there are so many different successful projects based on a totally different concept/strategy. We don't want to too much deprive observer's interest to objects other than the campaign targets, and encourage wider, general variable star study. Naturally, addition is a more difficult and painstaking than deprival, but please keep this in mind when you become a professional astronomer, and don't be a second Joe Patterson. Professional astronomical research can be equally successful without deprival from amateur activities. Regards, Taichi Kato
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