AAVSO Members by Type (as of September 30, 2007) Total Members: 1,277 *D. Hoffleit and F. Bateson...

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AAVSO Members by TypeAAVSO Members by Type(as of September 30, 2007)(as of September 30, 2007)

Total Members: 1,277

*D. Hoffleit and F. Bateson were the last Honorary Members on the rolls.

April 1, 2007 - September 30, 2007

Annual: 35

Sustaining: 1

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Members from US: 27

Members from abroad: 9

(from 6 countries)

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New Members - Fall: 55

New Members - Spring: 36

Total New Members FY 2006/2007: 91

New Member SummaryNew Member Summary

AAVSO Members by CountryAAVSO Members by Country

in 47 Countries

1,277 Total

ARGENTINAAUSTRALIAAUSTRIABELGIUMBRAZILBANGLEDESHBULGARIACANADACAYMAN ISLANDS/BWICHILECHINADENMARKEGYPTENGLANDFINLANDFRANCEGERMANYGREECEHONG KONGHUNGARYINDIAIRELANDISRAELITALYJAPAN

MALTAMEXICONETHERLANDSNEW ZEALANDNORWAYOMANPOLANDPORTUGALROMANIARUSSIASCOTLANDSOUTH AFRICASOUTH KOREASPAINSRI LANKASWEDENSWITZERLANDTAIWANTURKEYUKRAINEUNITED ARAB EMIRATESUNITED STATES

In MemoriamIn MemoriamMembers, Observers, Colleagues, and Friends of the AAVSOMembers, Observers, Colleagues, and Friends of the AAVSO

Ralph GeschwindMassillion, OH

A dedicated AAVSO observer and member since the late 1960’s, Ralph was also a founding member the Wilderness Center Astronomy Club in Ohio. His love of astronomy and willingness to mentor helped to encourage many new VSO’ers.

Manuel FojoLos Osos, CA

A devoted AAVSO member since 1978, Manuel supported astronomy outreach efforts, including the College of San Mateo’s Reach for the Stars Program, in his

home state of California.

In MemoriamIn MemoriamMembers, Observers, Colleagues, and Friends of the AAVSOMembers, Observers, Colleagues, and Friends of the AAVSO

October 2006 - April 2007October 2006 - April 2007

Frank Bateson - Tauranga, New Zealand

Jacques Fontalba - Les Rives, France

Martha Hazen - Hingham, MA

Dorrit Hoffleit - New Haven, CT

Raymond “Win” Jones - Capetown, South Africa

Bohdan Paczyński - Princeton, NJ

Alan Shapley - Boulder, CO

Upcoming MeetingsUpcoming Meetings

• Spring 2008 UK (Henden)• Fall 2008 MMO (Walker)• Spring 2009 SAS (Henden)• Fall 2009 Cambridge• Spring 2010 Argentina (Garcia)• Fall 2010 Cambridge• Spring 2011 Cambridge/AAS/Centenary

Spring 2008: UKSpring 2008: UK

• Roger Picard, BAA representative• Magdalene College, Cambridge• April 10-13, 2008• Rooms on-site are 100 pounds incl. board,

single bed• AAVSO and BAA together need to book at least

50 of the on-site rooms, otherwise penalty

Magdalene College - 1

Magdalene College - 2

Magdalene College - 3

Magdalene College - 4

Magdalene College - 5

Spring 2009: SASSpring 2009: SAS

• Joint meeting with the Society for Astronomical Sciences

• Big Bear, CA• May 20-21, 2009• RTMC follows that weekend (Memorial Day)• Visit to the new Big Bear Lake solar observatory

SAS - 1

SAS - 2

SAS - 3

SAS - 4

Large Survey InvolvementLarge Survey Involvement

• PanSTARRS - no progress• LSST - waiting on Suzanne Jacoby; anticipated

one E/PO person at HQ• GoogleSky - Carol Christian and I are playing

phone tag• ASAS - working with Pojmanski to have mirror

site at AAVSO

Rosebrugh BequestRosebrugh Bequest

• David Rosebrugh was council member, secretary and president of AAVSO

• Left 1/3 of estate to AAVSO (residual beneficiary, wife)

• Amount bequested was $100K, placed in Endowment until final disposition

• Family has given ok for use in house conversion

Feibelman BequestFeibelman Bequest

• Walter Feibelman was GSFC scientist, long-time member of AAVSO until 1970’s when resigned in protest to higher dues.

• Left 1.9% of estate to AAVSO ($38K)• Potential use as seed money for visitor’s suite

Discussion of FY2007 BudgetDiscussion of FY2007 Budget

• $1.1M for new building -> transferred into fixed assets and does not show in budget

• $100K for additional expenses (moving, lawyer fees, etc.) shows in budget, but considered as part of purchase price

• $435K from sale of 25 Birch returned to Endowment, so net is $765K.

• Permitted withdrawal is $774.5K (4.8%)

Pitney BowesPitney Bowes• Three accounts: postage, machine lease, “purchase power”• Place funds in purchase power. Then call and have downloaded into postage

machine.• Machine lease and purchase power used to be joint account.• Somewhere around 2001, purchase power split out. Never got notice of this;

never got statements.• Suddenly in June 2007, after they got our address changed, we started

getting statements that showed we were maxed out - $25K. If purchase power was overdrawn, then they extended credit and charged interest. Never got a statement.

• EOW working with PB to “research” the account and give us the back statements so we can trace the history. In meantime, we are paying interest.

• We may have to pay the entire balance - $25K hit on budget.

TiedemanTiedeman

• Auditor for many years• Last year hired new agent, stuck him on our

account.• Charges were $17K instead of usual $10K• Working with Henry to either reduce this, or

ensure we don’t have similar bill this year.

HQ StatusHQ Status

• Back wall repaired, all internal repairs and painting finished. New windows on 2nd story.

• To be done: exterior - replacement of siding, painting, landscaping. A couple of new windows.

• Working with architects to decide on style, get bids.

HQ - conference centerHQ - conference center

• Patched up for Fall meeting, will work ok.• Ideal for a benefactor at the $100K level - redo

kitchen, raise ceiling, install another bathroom atall, paint/finish, redo wiring, etc.

• Low priority until we get a benefactor.

HQ - residenceHQ - residence

• Long discussion with city, but they have finally decided residential conversion is grandfathered and can be accomplished with building permit, and does not require new parking plan.

• Two areas to discuss: visitor’s suite, residence.• Architect’s plan to remodel entire area• 3 construction bids

Visitor’s SuiteVisitor’s Suite

• Approx 250 sq. ft.; includes bedroom, bathroom, microwave/refrigerator. Like motel room.

• Accessible through house and through HQ.• Used for HQ visitors (membership, Watson, Kinne,

Simonsen, etc.) at significant cost savings (Best Western = $160/night incl. taxes)

• Can ask for donations for membership use• Cannot be cleanly decoupled from house conversion

(commercial building permit otherwise)

ResidenceResidence

• Approx 1400 sq. ft. plus finished basement; 2 bedroom, 1.5bath plus garage, deck

• Can use visitor’s suite as 3rd bedroom for guests• Desired by Director (larger than existing condo, no

overhead neighbors, closer to work, more updated)• Potential future use (new Director, visitor’s quarters,

summer students)• No clean other use; should not be left vacant• Logical fundraiser

Basement

First Floor

2nd Floor

BidsBids

• John Connaughton, recommended by architect, high end. $338K

• S&H Construction. Next door. $259K

• Brian Weisman. Did 2001 remodel, back wall, 2nd floor windows. $160K

HQ StaffingHQ Staffing

• 9 full-time staff (Henden, Davis, Menali, Templeton, Waagen, Searle, Saladyga, Malatesta)

• 1 part-time student (Price)• 3 part-time employees (Ortiz, Kinne, L.Henden)• 3 contract staff (Caton, Turner, Watson)

HQ Staffing - PriceHQ Staffing - Price

• Admitted to PhD program at Tufts, Science Education• Full-time during summer and breaks; 20hrs/week through

school year.• Needs to teach at least one semester, probably Spring

2008, will not be able to work then.• Expects to take about 4 more years to complete degree• Loss of full-time IT person impacts HQ. Aaron not

expected to continue IT work once gets PhD.• At same time, Aaron working hard to bring in grants to

pay full-time IT person.

HQ Staffing - KinneHQ Staffing - Kinne

• Richard (Doc) Kinne already doing IT work on his regular job. Hired 10hrs/week to do remote IT work for AAVSO. Watching system logs, writing Perl scripts for database checking. Helping out on web design. Helping when computers need rebooting, security patches, etc.

• Wants to work full-time, at which time he would move to Boston.

• Insufficient funds to hire full-time, but is needed.

HQ Staffing - SearleHQ Staffing - Searle

• Only admin assistant - used to have three in office. Inherited entire workload.

• Being treated for medical condition. Loss of two months during summer and during end of fiscal year, critical times.

• I offloaded financial duties to Linda to meet fiscal deadlines.

HQ Staffing - L. HendenHQ Staffing - L. Henden

• Temporary solution to Searle problem was to hire Linda part-time (10-15hrs/week) to do financial functions. Lots of experience and knows the association. Stepped in and is straightening out record-keeping, quickbooks, etc. Needed for end-of-year, dues.

• Not a good long-term solution (nepotism, financial control). However, will do until we have sufficient funding to hire new full-time person.

• Need to talk to auditor to find out what safeguards he wants.

HQ Staffing - futureHQ Staffing - future

• Need financial administrator. Can be multiplexed with other duties to share costs.

• Need full-time IT person, in-house.• Temporary solutions are part-time people, since

targeted, lower total salary and no benefits. Only stopgap measure. Permanent solution is to increase overhead rate on grants and/or bring in more funds.

Grants - FY2007Grants - FY2007

• Validation grant, used $25K out of $78K• AAS SRG (Eggen) $3K• Swift JANET salaries spent ($14K)• Szkody XMM not spent ($10K)• Swift UVOT not spent ($10K)• Something else $40K

Grants - FY2008Grants - FY2008

• Validation grant had $52K left at end of FY2007• HST/Szkody $15K (includes $5K for campaign

salaries)• HST/Bond $9500• XMM $10K• SWRI/MJUO $25K

Grants - failuresGrants - failures

• NSF SS Cyg (1year; Price)• NSF SRO/MJUO (Terrell/Henden)• NSF cool stars (Templeton)• NASA/Deep Impact EPO (Kadooka)

Grants - futureGrants - future

• F.A.R. $4K for two new filters• NSF Nov15 SS Cyg, Price/Patterson 3yrs $300K• NSF Nov15 SRO/MJUO Terrell/Henden 3yrs $100K• NSF Dec15 Education (Science Olympiad real

research) Price 3yrs $300K• IYA2009 Several grants through AAS/Price $300K• Mt. Cuba/Morgan $100K Dec1

Discussion of FY2008 BudgetDiscussion of FY2008 Budget

• Budget includes salary for fundraiser and equivalent amount of fundraising income

• Pickering fund??• Aaron pays his own way!• HOA purchase funds arrive (Donna Young)• No funds allocated for building refurb• Building utilities etc. less since 1 building• Legal and accounting includes 2x audit• 3 issues of journal to work on backlog• No additional grants

Director’s Report to CouncilDirector’s Report to Council Oct1,2006-Sep30,2007Oct1,2006-Sep30,2007

Arne A. HendenDirector

arne@aavso.org

Amateur PublicityAmateur Publicity

• Timothy Ferris - “Seeing in the Dark” PBS special (he has been in contact with us since, GRB/NM Skies)

• John Bohannon (Science mag)• Oksanen (GRB071010B)• WGPAC reactivated• First Chambliss Award• Newspaper articles (Motta)

Annual Observation Totals

AAVSO Data Download Requests

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Data Requests

2,760 from one student

2,760 from one student

8,401 requests

Variable Star PlotterVariable Star Plotter

Still in beta release, but getting better Contracted with Clockworks for initial program; Michael

Koppleman (volunteer), Aaron Price, Chris Watson working on final version

Works for all AAVSO stars, all VSX stars, coords compDB now loaded, so compstar labels for all AAVSO

sequences compDB photometry loaded for 22K stars Remaining 10K stars to be loaded Jan1 Huge time savings for chart updates

VSP issuesVSP issues

Biggest issue is admin tool for maintaining compDB (Watson) Jan1 update is for those comp stars more than 0.2mag in error -

major impact on observers and for research. Still need sequence team for adding new sequences, and to go

back and fix old sequences New field calibrations being performed at SRO Implementing Tycho2 for bright charts instead of NOMAD Investigating dot size issue

Variable Star Plotter Only

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Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep

PageRequests

58,024 charts plotted

Variable Star IndexVariable Star Index

Functioning nearly flawlessly, slowly being accepted by general community.

Biggest issue is batch uploading of new catalogs Need refereed VSX paper Need publication path for new stars Need linking to Simbad, ADS

Internal: JavaLPVInternal: JavaLPV

Written by Kate Davis, replaces the graph paper approach used by Elizabeth Waagen to generate the LPV Min/Max prediction bulletin

Will get full test this year Need more mean light curves for remaining

LPVs to be fully useful Eliminate entirely? Online tool?

MySQL MySQL AAVSO International DatabaseAAVSO International Database

Created by Aaron Price, working properly and fast All submissions and corrections are made to the

relational database; ASCII text files are gone. JavaZAP (Sara Beck) is online Biggest existing problem is the beta test period (Aug-

Sep 2006) resulted in numerous duplicate entries; slowly being cleaned out.

ValidationValidation

JavaZAP working, so being heavily used by Kerri, Sara, Gamze (local and remote)

All Level I stars now updated (1200); working on Level II (lower priority stars)

Automated prevalidation catches vast majority of input errors; can be made smarter

Still to do: CCD validation Takes a lot of staff time. Important? Supervalidation - charge for service (Sarty, Percy)

New data formatsNew data formats

Current visual format too limited, especially with 10 character names. Based on old ASCII system

Created new visual standard format Created new extended (CCD) format (solicited support by all

major vendors), that handles different reduction methods - saves Kate’s time by only programming to the Standard formats

Elimination of HD as primary key - now use AUID, obtained from VSX

Can input data on any star

Web changesWeb changes

Using PayPal for all MC/Visa orders. Membership renewal streamlined; updates SOLO automatically Data format support Kate taking data structures courses, staying current Tons of “busy work” - homepage changes, added

documentation (Mentor pages), eJAAVSO, etc.

Sonoita Research Observatory (SRO)Sonoita Research Observatory (SRO)

Operated by John Gross; partners Dirk Terrell, Walt Cooney and AAVSO

C14, Paramount, STL-1001E

FY2007 SRO ProjectsFY2007 SRO Projects

W Vir (Templeton/Henden paper) Z UMi (continuing light curve; Cooney) SS Cyg monitoring for Aaron (PASP paper) Novae (several Henden/Munari papers) Calibrations (Henden/LPV, Terrell/WUMa) AAVSO (Dillon, Wells, Sallman)

Z UMi from SRO

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2453300 2453400 2453500 2453600 2453700 2453800 2453900 2454000 2454100 2454200JD

MAgnitude

Real value of SRO is for long-term monitoring of many fields. Note near complete BVRI coverage (dropouts due to summer monsoon) of this circumpolar object

MJUOMJUO

Agreement in place for 2/3 time on the MJUO 0.6m telescope for next 10 years

Agreement in place with SWRI for $25K to fund refurbishment in exchange for 1/3 time on MJUO; so net to AAVSO is 1/3 time

Mechanical modifications underway; finish in December - Foote to install motors then.

NSF grant proposal for new camera, salary, etc. Dirk Terrell PI, Henden CoI

Mt. John University Observatory (MJUO)

Lowell/MorganLowell/Morgan

Lowell will donate the Morgan 24-inch telescope (used for planetary patrol work) to the AAVSO

Who refurbishes? Foote says too large for his facility. Checking with Lowell.

Where to site? Checking with Mt. Hopkins, NMT Will give some time to SWRI in exchange for

Terrell effort in automating

Morgan Telescope

Morgan Telescope

0.6m, f/13.5, quality optics

Also has f/77 secondary, separate top ring/motor

RA gearing excellent

Dec gearing needs work

Excellent instrument capacity

FY2008 ProjectsFY2008 Projects

Refurbishment, installation of MJUO and Morgan. Webpage for requests

Resolution of Ford Observatory (Victor Valley) Update of compstar database, VSP, VSX Campaigns (eta Aur, IYA2009) Continued calibrations and VSD work HQ refurbishment Streamlining of accounting system (autopay) New “store” items