Submit observations to BAAVSS and AAVSO simultaneously?

[Maxim Usatov]

Dear colleagues,

I am a member of both BAA and AAVSO. Should I submit my observations to both databases at the same time or BAAVSS database is automatically merged into AAVSO?

Thanks!

Max

[Andy Wilson]

Hi Max,
The quick answer is you should submit observations to both organisations, explanation as follows.
We periodically send the AAVSO updates with copies of new BAAVSS observations, but this is typically every 3-12 months. Where feasible we try to make it every 3 months, but my workload can lead to longer periods between updates and delays can also happen at the AAVSO. I do some manual house cleaning of the BAAVSS data before I compile the data files, and there is manual work at the AAVSO end to check the data and select which observations to add, as they don’t add the observations for every star in the BAA database. At some stage it would be nice to automate the whole process. However, due to the manual work at both ends this will be a few years away at best.
The BAAVSS records more information about the observations than the AAVSO, to allow future researchers to investigate individual observations should they wish to do so. It also enables the BAAVSS database to recalculate historical observations onto the latest sequence. While this isn’t applicable to many of the fainter stars we observe today, it is very useful where the BAAVSS has long term observations of stars covering many decades. These can appear as bumps in the AAVSO light curves, where a sequence was updated when more accurate comparison star magnitudes became available. Where a BAAVSS chart is recorded with the observations, there is an option to recalculate to remove these bumps from the BAAVSS database.
When I discussed submitting to both organisations with the AAVSO, they asked for BAAVSS members to submit their observations to both organisation. This avoids any delay in them appearing in the AAVSO database.
Best wishes,
Andy, BAAVSS Database Secretary

[Maxim Usatov]

Thank you, Andy!

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