[vsnet-chat 4243] Re: re vs-chat 4203 [was GK Per etc.]

["Stan Walker" <astroman@voyager.co.nz>]

Good Heavens, or something like that - what is VSChat coming to?

I've always had mixed feelings about the Glasby events - what were the
motives? Having read both the VS books in question I thought they were a
good, but perhaps, sloppy presentation of a very wide field and undoubtedly
popularised variable star observing. Where else, apart from in the
introduction to the GCVS, which hasn't been readily available until
recently, can you get an overall view of the VS field? Back in those far off
times getting JDs and fractional days wrong was very common. Maybe 5-10% of
all measures suffered from these errors. So I'd like to believe it was all
accidental, don't shoot me but maybe the benefit of the doubt applies?

In the last year or so I've had some rather confusing publications on the
desk. Both have dates that precede the actual publication date by many
months, in one case more than a year. One publication quotes 'received'
dates, the other doesn't. This type of thing can obviously lead to credit
being given wrongly if there is nothing in the individual articles, like
dates, to date them.

Bish Ishabishi mentions the $$$ motive which is often linked to the prestige
aspect. There have been a number of nasty incidents in this part of the
world arising from that.

None of this is the type of thing I like seeing on VSChat. Even TK's
'Important Notice' is not the type of thing to see there - after all, we're
all supposed to be pushing astronomy forward and flexibility of outlook is a
useful attribute.  I liked Sebastian's bit about those old measures - now
has anyone got a more modern equivalent?

Regards,
Stan



----- Original Message -----
From: John Isles <jisles@voyager.net>
To: <crawl@zoom.co.uk>; <vsnet-chat@kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp>
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2001 6:59 AM
Subject: [vsnet-chat 4227] Re: re vs-chat 4203 [was GK Per etc.]


> John Greaves wrote:
>
> > In the late sixites / early seventies one John Glasby was the head of
the
> > BAA VSS....
>
> > Unfortunately, it turned out that most of his observations were
spurious.
> > Later investigation proved that, for example, observations of SS Cyg
would
> > be logged when said was below the horizon.  This was apparently
eventually
> > revealed by a BAA member and is covered in an article in the JBAA, but
> > unfortunately I forget the reference.  [If somebody out there who knows
> > more about this could give some better details I feel it would be
> > informative and of interest.  With care the points can be made without
> > making it personal, and they are important points.  Is John Isles still
> out
> > there in vsnet-chat land, and do you know anything more concrete on this
> > topic?  This is in _no way_ an insinuation that Mr Isles was in any way
> > involved in this matter, it's just that he was a lot closer to this
event
> > and organisation in time and space than I am/was, and has a good general
> > knowledge of the amateur variable star obs field].
>
> Yes, John Isles is alive and well out there in vsnet-chat land, and as
> Glasby's successor in charge of the BAA Variable Star Section I was the
> person mainly responsible for the repudiation of Glasby's work by the BAA,
> and for doing the best I could to put things in order afterwards.  I don't
> know if Glasby is still alive, so I shall simply direct you to the
published
> references which were approved by the lawyers and which are:
>
> Journal of the BAA, 86 (4) 262, 1976 June: notice repudiating many of
> Glasby's section reports.
> Journal of the BAA, 86 (4) 335, 1976 June: letter signed by the President
> concerning "errors" in Glasby's book "The Dwarf Novae"
>
> > Anyway, the point is, what does one do with archival observations by
> > Glasby?  He can't have invented all his observations.  So, do you pick
and
> > choose or just bin the lot?  And how do you discuss the topic without
> > mentioning the person themself?  In fact, what did/does the BAA VSS do
> with
> > these observations?
>
> In Glasby's case, once we realised what was going on, we disregarded the
> lot.  They may remain in the archives on paper, but I hope none are in the
> database.
>
> Best wishes -- John Isles
>
>

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