CHOICE Course: Observational Best Practices

Instructor: Arne Henden

In 2023, a dedicated group of 10 AAVSO members spent months in reviewing the AAVSO International Database and interviewed many observers, with the goals of both finding quality deficiencies in submitted observations, as well as suggesting many ways in which that quality could be improved. Some of the suggestions fall directly on the AAVSO headquarters staff, such as enhancing the automatic data checking in programs like WebObs. However, a large number of other suggestions fall under the category of best observational practices.

This course will consider a few of these practices, with the hopes that improving your observational techniques will enable you to make better measurements, and enhance your confidence in the quality of your submitted photometry. Over the course of about 6 weeks, we will discuss one or more topics per week, showing examples of possible problems, give some suggestions as to how these problems could be solved, and provide daily homework to help you learn the techniques.

The initial course will be carried out on a forum, and will be geared towards CCD/CMOS observers using photometric UBVRI filters. If you don’t have your own equipment, or have inclement weather during the instructional period, images taken with AAVSOnet telescopes will be made available. VPHOT will be used to share images. The class will be limited to 30 participants.