I had to chuckle to myself this morning when the abstract of this paper landed in my mailbox, "The Onset of Chaos in Pulsating Variables". Being the sick twist I am, the first thing that came to my mind was Maxwell Smart and Agent 99 battling KOAS in the 1960's show Get Smart!
I'm on my second reading of the paper during lunch today, and I admit I don't quite understand the importance or significance of 'Chaos' in the paper. I almost had it, but "missed it by that much, 99".
It is interesting to note that the paper refers to both visual observations of Long Period Variables as well as the Predicted Dates of Maxima and Minima of Long Period Variables, otherwise known as the Bulletin. The other obvious connections to AAVSO are authors Turner and Percy (council member and Journal editor repsectively) as well as Leonid Berdnikov, who happens to be visiting AAVSO this week.
So, here it is in black and white. There is still interest in these stars, papers are being written and yours and my observations (visual and CCD) are being used to 'do science'.
If the pulsations seem chaotic, perhaps it is for two reasons:
• We know little about resonance phenomena in these stars,
• Visual observations can’t be efficient to study the multiple frequencies.
To solve that, we have to change the observation method. We need CCD observations with better RMS and more observations, close to 1 per day or more with the Mira stars for example. The circumpolar stars are interesting; it’s very easy to obtain a complete curve on many periods, we need only patience and time.
My first result in three years of Mira observation confirm this.