Welcome to the VSX forum!
We decided to create this forum to ensure our membership is aware of the
behind the scenes work we do in VSX every day (so it stops being "behind
the scenes"!).
VSX was created in 2005 and, after almost 10 years, has become the most
complete catalogue of variable stars in the world. It's also the most
up-to-date one, thanks to the support of the AAVSO staff and volunteers
and the variable star community that helps us by revising known variable
stars and submitting new ones.
At the beginning, VSX was populated with the information included in the
available variable star catalogues (GCVS, NSV, Downes, ASAS, NSVS, etc)
because our initial aim was completeness. Once we reached that point, a
neverending process of giving quality the highest priority was started.
Each day we make VSX better by correcting mistakes of all kinds
(identifications, positions, magnitude ranges, elements for periodic
variables) and deleting the duplicate records that were created when we
imported all the variable star catalogues (the same star might be
included in more than one catalogue).
VSX has also become a core application for the AAVSO and most of our
tools and programs (VSP, LCG, WebObs, VStar, VPhot) rely on it to work
efficiently.
In this forum, we will keep you posted with VSX updates (e.g. new
variable star lists imported), VSX changes (bugs fixed, new features),
outstanding submissions received, interesting corrections made, updates
on the duplicate deletion work and other stuff related to the VSX work
and improvements. We want it to be an open space where you can also make
your comments or questions regarding VSX and feel free to give us
suggestions as to how to improve it.
We hope that you will join us.
Clear skies,
Sebastian
Hi Sebastián,
nice to see that a forum on VSX has been implemented!
To me as a datamining nerd, VSX is my "working horse". When looking for information on variable stars, it is the place to go; it boasts the most-up-to-date and complete catalogue of variable stars there is. Which, of course, is thanks to you, guys, and your ceaseless efforts in improving its contents and importing variable star lists from
recent publications.
It seems that the community has become increasingly aware of this, too; from what I've seen, VSX is gaining wide-spread acceptance and has lately been cited more in professional research papers. I'm pretty sure this trend will continue with more and more people recognizing VSX's advantages.
Furthermore, as stars in VSX are also found through VizieR, contributing to VSX means that someone will likely stumble upon your entry whilst researching. Last, but not least, accessing the most common databases with "one click" via the external links is very convenient, indeed!
So, thanks, guys, and keep up the good work; it is much appreciated!
Best wishes,
Stefan Hümmerich (AAVSO / BAV)