The bright, long-period, eclipsing binary star epsilon Aurigae is predicted to begin its next eclipse late July or early August of 2009. The AAVSO is participating in a global campaign to record this eclipse as part of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 celebrations, organized by the Citizen Sky project (http://www.citizensky.org). Epsilon Aurigae is now past solar conjunction and has reappeared as a morning object.
Eclipse Spectropolarimetry of the epsilon Aurigae System
Kathleen M. Geise
Robert E. Stencel
University of Denver, Department of Physics and Astronomy, 2112 E. Wesley Avenue, Denver, CO 80208
Nadine Manset
An Analysis of the Long-term Photometric Behavior of epsilon Aurigae
Brian K. Kloppenborg
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Denver, 2112 East Wesley Avenue, Denver, CO 80208
Jeffrey L. Hopkins
Hopkins Phoenix Observatory, 7812 West Clayton Drive, Phoenix, AZ 85033
Citizen Sky was designed as a multi-year project focusing on the bright eclipsing variable, epsilon Aurigae. Time was dedicated to observing the eclipse of eps Aur, forming research teams, learning how to do some basic analysis of the data, and learning about writing a research paper. The capstone event of this process is the publication of a special issue of the Journal of the American Association of Variable Star Observers (JAAVSO) which is focused on papers related to epsilon Aurigae, similar objects and amateur observing techniques of bright stars.
CALL FOR PAPERS
for a special edition of the
Journal of the American Association of Variable Star Observers
dedicated to epsilon Aurigae, similar objects and amateur observing techniques of bright stars.
August 8, 2011: The bright star epsilon Aurigae has emerged from its most recent eclipse that began in August, 2009. A BVRIJH light curve for the last 365 days of the eclipse can be viewed at the following URL.
100728 Update: Dr. Budaj has offered a short description of the paper with a nice illustration, which can be read via the Citizen Sky forums.
The following is an abstract for a paper recently been posted to ArXiv (and accepted for publication in A&A Letters). The paper is based on your AAVSO observations of apsilon Aurigae and acknowledges AAVSO support.
