The AAVSOnet to the Rescue!

I want to document the impact the AAVSO and the AAVSOnet have made on my learning of Astronomy.

My background is in the Biosciences – tropical diseases, biochemistry, molecular and cellular biology, protein modeling - and my career has always been that of a scientist in academia (Ph.D., University of Georgia in Athens, 1988), having retired as a university professor in 2016.

In 2013 I decided to pursue a long-standing personal project, born in 1985-1986 with the Halley’s comet visit to our corner of the Solar System: Astronomy. For that matter I started with a 114-mm Newtonian; quite simply, the telescope that one can buy in department stores. Immediately after that, I swapped the Newtonian for an 8-in Schmidt-Cassegrain. At the time I did not know what I was looking for, so I started buying anything that I read would be useful for stargazing. I thought amateur astronomy was all about taking pretty pictures of the planets, nebulae, the Sun, and the Moon. I had no idea about variable stars. When I learned about the AAVSO, I thought: why would someone care to measure stars that vary in brightness? That must be pretty boring and useless.

Then, a few years later, I don’t recall why, I joined the AAVSO. 2022 was the year of the turning point: I took the CHOICE courses Variable Star Classification and Light Curves, Introduction to Spectroscopy, Developing a Visual Observing Program, and Photometry using VPhot. Those courses taught me about the variable stars, the importance of studying them, the techniques involved, and what kind of telescope accessories one needs to address the subject. Naturally, I also learned that many filters and accessories I had bought were useless for stellar photometry – money had been wasted. I also understood that I was not interested in the science & art of astrophotography. My background in sciences drives me to make measurements and draw conclusions, not to take pretty pictures. It is just a matter of personal preferences and abilities, no disrespect for astrophotography.

It took me a long time, several years, for me to make it possible to assemble a DIY observatory, operated remotely, which I am still trying to make productive. I cannot use my telescope from the apartment I live, downtown, with a narrow view to the east and extremely light polluted. For that reason, my observatory is 5 miles away, in a Borttle 4.5 area.

Have I been able to do photometry of variable stars from my observatory? Nope! It only became functional by mid-April this year. And cloudy skies prevented me from tuning up my gear and mastering the software until mid–July. Before I fully succeeded in this tuning-up, there came the smoke in August with particulates from thousands of fires in 80% of Brazil, most of them arsons. People transform forests and other types of natural vegetation into pastures. A continental, if not a global, disaster. Every night, when I look at the sky, I see no stars, sometimes not even the Moon. It is just a whitish blanket of air pollution at mid-altitude. At dawn and sunset, an extremely reddish Sun. The rainy season is about to start again and, with higher global temperatures, most nights will be cloudy, just like during the past year.

I only had a few clear sky evenings in the past 12 months, not enough to keep everything running and acquire some expertise with the assembly. Much less to capture decent images for photometry.

So, was I unable to do variable star photometry during the past 2 years?

Absolutely.

The AAVSOnet came to the rescue. It was in February 2023 that I learned about the AAVSOnet and submitted my first project, to do photometry and low-resolution spectroscopy of twelve Be stars. Several months later, I modified the project replacing most of the stars in my original list. By the end of 2023, I joined the HOYS initiative and, early in 2024, the SNEWS project.

The AAVSOnet gear in Australia, New Mexico, and Texas sends me excellent images from targets in the Southern and Northern hemispheres. Those images have taught me how to put into practice what I have learned in the CHOICE courses, the AAVSO documents and webinars, plus some fifty books I acquired along the way (Besides the courses I already mentioned, I also took the following CHOICE courses: CCD Photometry, Part I & Part II, How to use VSTAR, Advanced AstroImageJ for Exoplanet Observing, and Observational Best Practices).

So far, I have uploaded to the AID 19,886 B-V-Rc-Ic color-transformed (mostly) photometries.

From all this, while still a newcomer to amateur astronomy and having much to learn, I feel rewarded by so much that I learned from the AAVSO courses, webinars, documents, and the AAVSOnet. I also joined the British Astronomical Association, the Variable Star Section of the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand, and several groups of interest such as the Spectroscopy Discussion Group with some of the most learned people in the area, professionals and amateurs.

Now I understand the beauty of the variable stars and what can be learned from stellar photometry and astrophysics.

The AAVSOnet has been central to this rich learning experience.

Well, I am still quite sad that after much investment of time and money, my gear remains mostly useless due to cloudy weather and/or extreme air pollution. It takes a lot of time and engineering to assemble a DIY shed-on-wheels observatory with an equatorial mount, two cameras, a filter wheel, photometric filters, a focuser, a computer running several software, switches, shed and doors remotely opening and closing, surveillance, etc. This is not an easy task!

Recognizing how complex this business is, I want to praise the AAVSOnet team and its creator, Dr. Arne Henden, for all the hard work and engineering that makes this robotic telescope network of 10 observatories located in Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and New Hampshire possible. I want to thank the volunteers who operate each of the AAVSO telescopes daily making sure that they operate flawlessly. I also congratulate all the people in the AAVSO for the documents, CHOICE courses, and the webinars, and also the AAVSO staff for their daily routine dedicated to running this superb association.

Cheers to all of you!

3 Likes

Hi Ari,

It’s great to hear about your experience with AAVSOnet. I’m also busy submitting photometry that I’m getting from AAVSOnet. I’ve been focused on T CrB and the SNEWS campaigns.

I watched the video “AAVSONet Proposals – What, Why and How?” by Ken Menzies @MZK and George Silvis @SGEO back in 2021, and realized this is a great way to learn more about photometry when I don’t have my own camera or set-up. It is a great overview of AAVSOnet and how to get started.

It took me a few months to decide what I would focus on with a proposal and taking the Choice Course on VPhot with Ken Menzies made learning how submit observations easy. The emphasis on color transformation of your submissions should be learned by everyone submitting photometry.

Ari, I’d love to see what your DIY set-up looks like and how you put it together. I’m also doing my own set-up now and sometimes its daunting, but once you get the first images coming in, it is very satisfying.

Thanks for taking the time to tell us about your experiences with AAVSOnet.

Andrew

Hi Andrew,

Please let me know what you want to know about my DIY setup.

I advance that it is quite simple:

  • Sky-Watcher HEQ5 Pro Synscan
  • Meade 8-in SCT (circa 2015)
  • ATIK 9-slot EFW2 filter-wheel (old…)
  • ZWO ASI120MM on a SVBONY SV165 30-mm f/4 MiniGuider
  • ZWO ASI533MM Pro
  • DIY focuser
  • Sliding gate motor (to move the shed back and forth via the Internet, uncovering the telescope; connected to a WiFi switch, controlled )
  • DIY door open/close mechanism (connected to a WiFi switch, controlled via the Internet)
    Software:
  • AstroPlanner
  • ASCOM
  • EQMOD
  • PHD2
  • SkyChart (Cartes du Ciel)
  • Stellarium
  • N.I.N.A.
  • SharpCap
  • FireCapture
  • Lupus focuser (DIY, Brazilian creator)
  • ASTAP

I tried MaxImDL and The SkyX but found them to be too complex, I couldn’t master them.

As I mentioned, I didn’t have time to learn the software and master the assembly before atmosphere pollution, which still lasts, prevented me from doing so. Every night I look at the sky and can’t see more than too or three bright stars. The sky is whitish, the Moon reddish, and the stars are invisible. There are no clouds, just smoke in the mid-layer atmosphere, maybe at a few hundred meters in height, and particulates from thousands of fires all over Brazil.

Ari

Hi Ari,

Thanks for posting details on your set-up. Have you been able to get everything connected to NINA and your preferred star chart software and “operational”?

I understand you have not had clear skies for months. But it sounds like you’ve hooked up all your equipment and somewhat tested it. You’re currently waiting for clear skies to be able to make sure it all works; pointing, focus, imaging, filterwheel, guider, etc…

I’ve got my rig operating only about as far as you. But I have been able to focus and image, and test the filter wheel. Next project is getting some sequences in NINA to be able to do some photometry. The learning curve on NINA has been easy with all the tutorials, but I find that I’ve spent quite a few days between sessions, and need to go back and review the tutorial again once I get the scope up and running. I’ve been contemplating just writing down the fast cheat sheet, so I can get everything running, and finally get some photometry. My work has picked up lately, so also difficult to find time to get out to the observatory. But I always make time for at least 30 minutes of Visual Variable Star Astronomy every night.

Digital photometry is reserved for quiet weekends for now.

Andrew

Hi, Andrew.

Yes, you got it. I want to share some additional information but… our conversation moved from AAVSOnet to Instrumentation & Software.

Shall we move to another forum category before someone complains or should we go private?

For the first option, please indicate which forum we should move to; for the second choice, please share your e-mail address. Mine is ari.m.siqueira@icloud.com.

Cheers,

Ari

Hey Ari,

We can move over here to continue our discussion.

Andrew