[vsnet-chat 4311] Re: Re Confirmation and Reporting Observations

[Thom Gandet <tgandet@mindspring.com>]

Hi, Pete and all -

Peter F Williams wrote:
> 
> I am certainly guilty of not reporting all of my observations through the
> vsnet.  They are, however, all reported through my parent organisation, the
> VSS RASNZ, and more recently through the AAVSO as a copy of my VSS dbf data
> file (though I am not sure if the AAVSO actually process these).

   It's my understanding AAVSO will process and archive them.  I think
there's also been a long history of co-operation between RASNZ and
AAVSO.  The folks at AAVSO are very helpful and an e-mail to them at 
aavso@aavso.org about your submittals would get you a prompt reply.

> ...my having some concerns about duplication of observations within
> the various international data bases.  Additionally, I would hope
> researchers of variable stars would seek observational data from all
> of the international groups and not just rely on data posted, for
> example, only to the vsnet.  Any thoughts on this duplication?

   As a researcher who makes good use of amateur observations,
timeliness is very much appreciated, especially of unusual
events, such as Be star or CV outbursts or the discovery of new
eclipsing binaries using HIPPARCOS data.  I have only recently
become acquainted with VSNET, and have used data obtained through
only AAVSO so far.

   It's my understanding that the AAVSO data is "evaluated" to
eliminate obvious misidentifications or wildly divergent
observations that are simply mistakes;  I don't know exactly what the
standards or processes they use to do that.  The AAVSO data has an
advantage in that the comparison stars used are standardized for
each star, so there is no uncertainty there; zero-point errors
are therefore minimized.

   Sorting out duplication is potentially very time consuming.
There are other things I'd much rather do! <G>  But of serious
concern to me is the uncertainty about which comparison stars were
in fact used and their magnitudes.  (This information should always
be available to make maximum use of the observations.)  Different
observers using different comparison stars results in a data set
that is probably nearly impossible to sort out.

   I don't know if AAVSO keeps track of the average zero-point error
for individual observers and then applies that to the raw
observations before making them available to researchers.

> ...recent observations of V4018 Sgr in which I was endeavouring to
> establish a better timing for the onset of decline of this under
> observed ZAND star.

   Symbiotic stars are under-observed as a class I think.  One of
our observing programs here is long-term monitoring and short
time-series observations of symbiotics.  (Thanks for picking one of
the more neglected ones!)  Amateur observations of these stars are
really needed, to both supplement and complement professional
observations.  (To roll out my particular little soap box for a
second: As with so many unusual variable stars, there is also a
real need for as near-simultaneous photometry and spectroscopy
as possible.)


Cordially,
Thom Gandet  

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