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The Arlo U. Landolt Lecture

 

During our 111th Annual Meeting in 2022, the AAVSO began a new tradition: the Arlo U.
Landolt Lecture. This lecture celebrates the memory of Dr. Landolt, who was both a
brilliant scientist and a gentleman beloved by the AAVSO community. His lifetime of
work has dramatically increased our understanding of the cosmos.
The honor of presenting this prestigious lecture will be awarded each year to a
prominent astronomer whose research expands upon Dr. Landolt’s accomplishments.

The 2022 Arlo Landolt Lecture speaker: Dr. Arne Henden

The recipient: Dr. Arne Henden received his doctorate from Indiana University, and subsequently worked for Goddard Space Flight Center, The Ohio State University, and the U.S. Naval Observatory as an instrumentation specialist. For the last decade of his career, he served as the director of the AAVSO. He retired to New Hampshire, where he currently runs several automated telescopes. Dr. Henden is the author of a textbook and several hundred scientific articles, and has given lectures worldwide.
The lecture: Dr. Henden discussed special elements of the AAVSO Photometric All-Sky Survey (APASS). APASS was started from discussions with Arlo Landolt, and was awarded an NSF grant based on his support of the project. All-sky calibration is necessary for the AAVSO to provide comparison stars for targets of interest, and APASS was designed to meet that goal. Arne highlighted the early history of the all-sky calibration project, as well as comparisons with other surveys. He also announced the status of DR11, the next formal release of APASS. Dr. Henden concluded by describing the new XPASS and APASS2 projects, with their all-sky completion and bright-star extension, along with volunteer opportunities for helping with the survey.