[AAVSO-DIS] November news from the AAVSO HQ

[arne]

Phew!  After end-of fiscal year processing in October, preparation
for the Council meeting and the annual Fall meeting, and finally
the November 15 deadline for NSF astronomy proposals, I can now
get back to other items that have been patiently waiting in the
wings for the past couple of months.

At least the weather has been remarkably good here.  We get a few
days of rain, and the normal weeks of above or below average
temperature, but the sun has been out almost every day.  And now,
we are in a second "leaf season," with a large number of maple
trees turning color, along with fire bush and other colorful plants.
The last couple of days have been absolutely stunning - and in
November!

I told you a month ago that we were going to issue the remaining
10,000 comparison stars in mid-December, and ask observers to
update their charts prior to January 1.  After thinking about it
for a while, we've decided to postpone that update slightly.  The
current thinking is to release the comparison star database in
mid-January, and then give observers until March 1 to update their
charts.  That gives you a bit more time to make the changeover, and
moves the confusion out of the holiday season.  We'll give you another
warning or two before the update occurs, so don't get too worried
about it yet.  However, it is coming, and just over the horizon, so
soon we will have good photometry for nearly everything on our program.

A new version of VSP is just about ready for release also.  We'll
finish it up internally, and then let beta-testers give us their
input before releasing it to the general community, but I'd guess
in a week or two it will be ready.  The charts will be cleaner and
we will support A and B scale.

The visual and CCD standard formats are nearly ready to go too.
In fact, many projects are "nearly ready", so lots of changes will
occur in short order - they all have taken time to produce, but due to
some quirk of nature, they get completed simultaneously.  Maybe this
will be a good Christmas present for everyone!

I'll send out a separate update on transient objects and objects
of interest in a few days.  Note the latest Special Notice on
the soft X-ray transient - this looks like a really interesting
object if you can reach -38degrees (you lucky Southern observers!).

And finally, an example of how dependent we are on computers and
the Internet.  Strasbourg announced this week that they were going
to update their computer systems from 7-11am on Saturday.  As
I write, those computers are still down, and my main sites, such
as Simbad and VizieR, are unavailable.  We get so used to having
those great references only a click away, and forget sometimes
that real hardware sits behind those websites.  We try to keep
the AAVSO site running 24/7, but even it goes down for a few
hours now and then.  We just have to be patient and work on
other things.  That means I might actually get leaves raked today!
Arne