Welcome to IYA!
The United States IYA Program Committee has created a Research Experiences for Students, Teachers and Citizen Science working group to design IYA activities around citizen science and pro-am collaboration. If you would like to participate, submit ideas or have questions email aavso@aavso.org and it will be directed to the working group.
This IYA 2009 working group’s main project is a multi-year effort involving variable stars – the Citizen Sky Project. In the summer of IYA 2009, third-magnitude variable star eps Aur will experience its next eclipse, which occurs only every 27.1 years and lasts between 640 and 730 days, nearly two years! Visit the Citizen Sky website or follow the Citizen Sky link on the right side of this page for more information.
Our vision statement: Among the many opportunities for the 2009 International Year of Astronomy is the chance to engage the public in authentic scientific research. The eclipsing binary star Epsilon Aurigae is a bright star that is easily seen with the unaided eye, even in light polluted areas. 2009 marks the beginning of a rare phase of activity in this star that has not been seen in over a quarter of a century and is as yet unexplained by scientists. Our goal is to allow anyone to participate in both the process of data collection and analysis to help unravel the mysteries of this star while increasing scientific understanding and excitement.
July, 2009 Update: The Citizen Sky Project is underway! Visit the Citizen Sky site for project updates and news of evidence that the long awaited eclipse of epsilon Aurigae has begun.
July, 2008 Update: Click here for a PDF describing our Eps Aur plans presented at the June, 2008 AAS meeting. A proposal has been submitted to NSF to fund this project for three years. We expect to hear a result in October, 2009. In the meantime, we are developing our Ten Star Training Program and other tutorials throughout the summer while also looking for other funding opportunities.
ASP Meeting
The working group is currently applying for funding from a variety of agencies to support the Eps Aur campaign. They will meet at the May-June, 2008 AAS/ASP meeting in Seattle to work out a roadmap for the rest of 2008. A key feature of the road map is to produce a “ten star training program” that observers can follow to learn how to observe variable stars, report the data and perform basic data analysis on the collective data set. Also, funding has been requested for a public workshop on Eps Aur to be held late in 2008. We expect to hear back on that funding request in early summer.
