Astronomy is for Everybody

The stars are free. Anyone can look up at the night sky and see the stars. And with a little knowledge, practice, and skill, anyone can begin to understand what is happening out there. People have been doing this for thousands of years. Some of the most important discoveries about the stars and planets were made by individuals who began by looking up and wondering.

But the individual's observations cannot be of much use if they are made in isolation. To look up and wonder about the stars and not talk about these questions with others is like someone writing wonderful poems and putting them away in a desk drawer. What we see and think about is just the beginning: our observations will mean something if we can make them known to others who have a similar interest in the stars. This works in both directions: something may be happening in the stars that you yourself have not seen, but you learn about it because others have seen the event and have communicated it to you.

There are amateur astronomy groups everywhere in the world. This happens anywhere two or more people get together to talk about what they see in the stars and how they go about it. An astronomy group can be two, or a few, or dozens, hundreds, or thousands of people who are eager to share what they know with others.

Professional astronomers have come to depend on these formal and informal networks of amateur astronomers' clubs and organizations. Most unpredictable events-like the appearance of novae and supernovae, comets, meteor and meteorite events, and sudden brightening or fading of stars-would go unnoticed by the professional astronomer if it were not for the nightly observations communicated by amateurs to their astronomy groups.

The Story of the AAVSO

In 1909, William Tyler Olcott, a lawyer, amateur astronomer, and the author of The Field Book of the Stars and other popular astronomy books, heard Harvard College Observatory Director Edward C. Pickering give a talk and exhibit some light curves and charts of variable stars. This fascinated Olcott, who immediately afterwards wrote Pickering to ask if he could become a variable star observer. In response, Harvard assistant and variable star observer Leon Campbell went to Norwich, Connecticut, where Olcott lived, "to initiate Mr. Olcott in the art of variable star observing." On February 2, 1910, Olcott "succeeded in locating the field of Omicron Ceti" and made his first official variable star observation. From that date on, Olcott regularly sent observations to Professor Pickering at the Harvard College Observatory. The March 1911 issue of Popular Astronomy carried an article by Olcott entitled, "Variable Star Work for the Amateur with Small Telescopes." Events then moved quickly and in the November issue, Olcott, signing himself "Corresponding Sec'y," announced that an organization had been formed by co-founder E.C. Pickering and himself, W.T. Olcott, and he suggested as its name, The American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO). He listed six people who had indicated their desire to cooperate, and included a list of 71 stars he himself had been observing. Thus, with the founding of the AAVSO, Pickering's dream of advocating variable star observations by amateurs became a reality.

By the end of its first year, over 6000 observations of 175 stars from 19 observers were published m PopularAstronomy. As participation increased, Olcott wanted to become better acquainted with the observers; he wrote, "I wanted to see what they look like." On April 8, 1914, the first informal meeting was arranged in a restaurant on 42nd Street in New York.

In November 1915, the first official meeting of the AAVSO took place at Harvard College Observatory, and the twelve observers who attended met co-founder Edward Pickering and Leon Campbell, the first recorder.

At its meeting in November 1917, the group decided to be organized formally and in October 1918, the AAVSO was incorporated under the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

The organization grew steadily in membership. By 1950, observers were contributing data at a rate of about 55,000 variable star observations each year. In 1957, with the launching of the Russian satellite Sputnik, the activities of the Association also took off. AAVSO's first involvement with space research took place with participation in satellite tracking. The involvement of observers in professional research increased. The International Astronomical Union, at its General Assembly in 1961, suggested that the AAVSO become the central repository for all variable star observations.

In 1962, the two-millionth observation was received from Leslie C. Peltier, only 16 years after the one-millionth in 1946. Increasing numbers of requests came from professional astronomers for AAVSO data as special interest in flare stars, eclipsing binaries, cataclysmic and nebular variables, and extragalactic supernovae accelerated, and observations of variable stars expanded beyond the optical region of the electromagnetic spectrum with instruments aboard balloons and planes.

The participation of AAVSO observers was sought by space researchers in almost all of the satellite and ground-based observing runs on cataclysmic variables. AAVSO's collaboration through observers' closely monitoring target stars and alerting astronomers to observed activity played an important role in the success of these sophisticated observing programs. Requests from astronomers for AAVSO data increased exponentially during the 1970s and 1980s, and the vital contributions of AAVSO observers were acknowledged in numerous astronomical papers.

There Today the AAVSO stands strong on the foundation built by such giants as William Tyler Olcott, Edward C. Pickering, Leon Campbell, and the thousands of dedicated members and observers. The Association is international in scope with its 1300 members worldwide, and, with over 8,500,000 observations, has the largest data bank on variable stars in the world. The AAVSO is rightly a source of pride to all who have contributed to what it is today.