Yesterday, when I checked the AAVSO light curve after submitting my observations made in the last 3 months, I noticed that there have been no observations of R Tri submitted since April, although this star are already clearly visible on the morning sky. Extrapolating the previos observations R Tri must be bright enough for binoculars now however.
This is not the first time I noticed the lack of observations for othervise well observed variables on the morning sky. In the case of omi Cet, last year there were no observation in the last 3 weeks of July, althoug Mira Ceti was already observed 1-2 weeks before. This was the case with SS Vir: almost now observation between October and December.
And this is the case even for previously well observed circumpolar Heritage CVs too when they are low on the sky. John Bortle has just recently mentioned that there are no observations for UV Per in the AID submitted since April. But even TZ Per and S Per are also quite underobserved recently.
Maybe we need to start a campaign for morning stars/rising stars? Let's start with R Tri and UV Per, then slowly we can watch omi Cet as well...
This is a personal responsability that we choose to undertake. I try and get my morning Miras and so on. You can too.
Enjoy it. The sky is better. Alan.
Don't forget that the farther North you are at this time of year the lighter the sky gets. I was observing until about 2 am this morning (about 52°N), and already the sky was not properly dark.
I too have noted this phenomena. I have a few CCD images in the queue. I did S CET yesterday and am awaiting R CET. R TAU and others will soon follow. Sierra Stars typically does not take images too far below 2 air masses. Perhaps the AAVSO could issue an "Early Bird" award for 500 morning observations per year to spur interest morning observing and help complete many of our light curves. But this would probably require some computer code to calculate observation time (3 hours or so) before local sunrise or variable star position relative to the Sun. Kevin - PKV
Hi Kevin, your "Early Bird Award" sounds nice, but I wonder how is it possible to calculate. You should propose this to the Council!
This is right up my alley since 99% of my variable star photometry is between midnight and dawn. I prefer to sleep early then wake up so I tend to catch the targets that are east of the meridian that are not likely to be observed by the evening observers.
My concept for an "Early Bird Award" would be for 500 annual visual observations where the variable stars were less than 60 degrees from the Sun in the predawn sky... The only way to compute this would be to do spherical trigonometry between the Sun and the variable star of interest for a given date... No observer Latitudes and Longitudes would be needed, but some programming utilizing the position of the Sun and the variables would be required... It may not be feasible given that it would be necessary to search the entire AID for a given year... Kevin Paxson - PKV
This program has a better chance of actually happening if it can be designed, implemented and run by volunteers, not AAVSO staff.
Use the Astronomical League observing clubs as a model. Have the observers submit their annual lists of stars (in whatever format the committee deems needed) that they believe qualifies for 'Early Bird' recognition by a certain date, and the volunteer committee in charge can develop their own software or processes to analyze the data and determine who are actually "kings of the morning people."
I think it sounds like fun, and I doubt the volume of submissions would be so high every year as to make this a formidable task for one or two volunteers. But for the same reason it is not a good ROI of staff time to develop a program like this.