The Bright Star Monitor subnet of AAVSOnet is currently underutilized. About 50% of the telescope time is being used by researchers, with the other 50% being filled in with the bright-star background survey. This survey has very low priority, and is just there to utilize all telescope time rather than letting telescopes sit idle. That survey forms a large part of the AAVSOnet Epoch Photometry Database, accessible via VStar and the AAVSOnet web page.
This means about 50% of the BSM telescope time is available to researchers. If you have a long-term project of stars brighter than about 15th magnitude, and you are an AAVSO member, consider submitting a short informal proposal from the webpage form! There are a wide variety of Johnson/Cousins and Sloan filters, along with diffraction gratings, available for both northern and southern BSM systems. While once-per-night monitoring is preferred, BSM can support limited time-series projects.
Arne
Arne
I guess BSM South is still not operative or I would have started receiving images for S Dor again ...
But, rather than submit a proposal for a research project (I don't have anything in mind at the moment), can you suggest a Target for nightly monitoring (or some other cadence?) It seems that you have observers for each of the Legacy Targets.
Cheers: Paul (YPFA)
Hi Paul,
I'll be doing a status update soon, but for BSM South, Peter has installed the ZWO CMOS camera on the AT72 astrographic refractor. There are some connectivity issues that are being resolved, but I think new data will be available soon.
Let me think about nightly monitoring targets! There are always several scientifically important targets that need monitoring, especially at mulitple wavelengths, and I have a couple of favorite targets that could use some data.
Arne
Hi,
S Dor is on my observing agenda since a couple of years in V and I band.
Regards,
Josch
Arne,
Now that I have my feet wet using the BSM network on BU TAU, I'm up for taking on another star or two as well. I have no targets in particular in mind, but I do enjoy being able to report multiple stars from each image.
Peter Bealo
New Hampshire