Aavso paper Session I sunday Sunday, May 22, 2011, 9: 30 am – 12: 00 pm
Sunday, May 22, 2011, 9:30 AM - 12:00 PM
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Sunday, May 22, 2011, 9:30 AM - 12:00 PMAAVSO Paper Session IISpecial SessionStaffordshireNew Life for Old Data: Digitization of Data Published in the Harvard Annals Matthew R. Templeton1, M. Saladyga1, K. Paxson1, R. Stine1, C. Froschlin1, A. Rupp1 1AAVSO. 9:30 AM - 9:50 AM Staffordshire We describe the volunteer-driven project to digitize published visual observations found in the Annals of the Harvard College Observatory, the publication of record for Harvard's variable star data archives prior to the founding of the AAVSO. The addition of published data from the 19th and early 20th centuries to the AAVSO International Database has the potential to enable significant new science by extending long-term light curves farther back in time with high-quality visual and photographic data. AAVSO volunteers working on this project have together digitized over well over ten thousand observations from the Harvard Annals, adding decades to the light curves of some stars. We highlight the work done so far, and show the potential to expand the project by both AAVSO Headquarters and by the volunteers themselves. The Effect of Online Sunspot Data on Visual Solar Observers Kristine Larsen1 1Central Connecticut State University. 9:50 AM - 10:10 AM Staffordshire The Spaceweather website (www.spaceweather.com) hosts a daily picture of the near-side of the sun from SDO/HMI which identifies sunspot groups by number. The site also includes an overall Boulder sunspot number from the past 24 hours. While this information can be helpful for visual sunspot observers who are just beginning to learn the techniques of careful visual sunspot counts (for example, how to identify complex groups and how to carefully examine the limb of the sun), the “power of suggestion” this data might have on an observer cannot be ignored. An observer can check their observation against this “standard” in nearly real-time and may be tempted to alter their data to conform to what they consider to be a more reliable standard. This preliminary study first examined the effects of the Spaceweather site on a class of college students just beginning to learn white light solar observing, and then compared the results of an experienced solar observer with the Spaceweather data. The World Science Festival John Pazmino1 1AAVSO. 10:10 AM - 10:30 AM Staffordshire New York City in the late 20th century rose to be a planetary capital for the sciences, not just astronomy. This growth is mainly in the academic sector but a parallel growth occurred in the public and home field. With the millennium crossing scientists in New York agitated for a celebration of the City as a place for a thriving science culture. In 2008 they began World Science Festival. 2011 is the fourth running, on June 1st-5th, following AAVSO/AAS. World Science Festival was founded by Dr Brian Greene, Columbia University, and is operated thru World Science Foundation. The Festival is 'saturation science' all over Manhattan in a series of lectures, shows, exhibits, performances. It is staged in 'science' venues like colleges and musea, but also in off-science spaces like theaters and galleries. It is a blend of hard science, with lectures like those by us astronomers to science-themed works of art, dance, music. Events are fitted for the public, either for free or a modest fee. While almost all events are on Manhattan, effort is done to geographicly disperse them, even to the outer boros. The grand finale of World Science Festival is a street fair in Washington Square. Science centers in booths, tents, pavilions highlight their work. This fair drew in past years 100,000 to 150,000 visitors. The entire Festival attracts about a quarter million. NYSkies is a proud participant at the Washington Square fair. It interprets the 'Earth to the Universe' display, debuting during IYA-2009. Attendance at 'Earth ...' on just the day of the fair plausibly is half of all visitors in America. The presentation shows the scale and scope of World Science Festival, its relation to the City, and how our astronomers work with it. Variable Star Observing with the Bradford Robotic Telescope Richard C. S. Kinne1 1AAVSO. 10:30 AM - 10:50 AM Staffordshire With the recent addition of Johnson BVRI filters on the Bradford Robotic Telescope's 24 sq. arc minute camera, this scope has become a possibility to be considered when monitoring certain stars such as LPVs. This presentation will examine the mechanics of observing with the BRT and show examples of work that has been done by the author and how that data has been reduced using VPhot. Cosmology with Type Ia Supernovae Kevin Krisciunas1 1Texas A&M University. 10:50 AM - 11:10 AM Staffordshire Phillips (1993) discovered a correlation between the maximum optical brightness of Type Ia supernovae and the rate at which the light curves decline. Within 10 years it was clear that the slope of the decline rate relation was shallower at longer wavelengths. Since 2004 it has been known that in the near-infrared Type Ia supernovae are very nearly standard candles. This makes them particularly useful for determining distances to the host galaxies because a combination of optical and near-IR photometry allows us to determine the extinction by dust even if the dust is very different than normal Milky Way dust. Questions on the grandest scale such as, "What is the ultimate fate of the universe?" hinge on getting accurate distances to objects in the universe. We discuss the advantages of using Type Ia supernovae for cosmology and summarize recent results, such as those of the ESSENCE supernova search, which was carried out with the Cerro Tololo 4-m telescope. Edwin Hubble's Famous Plate of 1923, and a Hubble-Hubble Connection David R. Soderblom1 1STScI. 11:10 AM - 11:30 PM Staffordshire On October 6, 1923 Edwin Hubble used the Mount Wilson 100-inch telescope to take a 45 minute exposure of a field in the Andromeda galaxy. This is the now-famous plate marked with his "VAR!" notation. I will discuss this plate and that notation. I will also tell the story of flying copies of that plate on the deployment mission for HST in 1990 as a Hubble memento and then locating those copies afterwards, and how copies were flown on Servicing Mission 4 on 2009 as well. This has led to an effort in which AAVSO members joined to identify and reobserve that noted star, arguably the most important object in the history of cosmology, but largely ignored since Hubble's time. Download 2.63 Mb. Share with your friends:
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