research

Welcome to the AAVSO's Research Portal.  From this page, you can find information about obtaining AAVSO data, requesting new observations, or learning more about the AAVSO, its data, and its services for the research community.  Its purpose is to facilitate your use of the AAVSO's resources in your research efforts.

See the gray boxes on the right hand side of this page to access the AAVSO data archives or to find out  how to work with the AAVSO to obtain new scientific data.

What do I do when I discover a new variable star?

(Jump to Reporting Possible Nova Discoveries)

The AAVSO is a unique organization dedicated to variable stars and variable star research. We house the largest and most comprehensive digital variable star database in the world. The possibilities of future research with these data are limitless. If you are interested in working with the data directly from headquarters, or if you are interested in a possible volunteer position, we might have an opportunity available for you!

Research articles

Review papers (up to 10,000 words)

Articles containing reviews and summaries of astronomical information as well as new research (by invitation only).

Variable Star Research (up to 6,000 words)

Articles on any topic of variable star astronomy, broadly including non-stellar variables such as AGN, gamma-ray bursts, and variable nebulae.  Examples include: new observations, analyses of existing data, theoretical and/or computational variable star modeling.

From John Percy, Editor, JAAVSO:

Revised 2023 June 21, 2022 November 21

Jump to Formal policy: Acknowledgement for Using AAVSO Data
Jump to Dear Colleague letter from the Director on using AAVSO data

2012 was another good year for science generated by the international variable star community, and your efforts played a role in helping advance the science of variable star astronomy.  The AAVSO as an organization continued to play a major role in providing access to amateur and professional data archives, along with providing new means to obtain observations (via AAVSOnet) and publish results (via the Journal of the AAVSO).