The AAVSO has been a repository on variable star data for over a 100 years. We currently host a plethora of data sources which are free for your own personal use and for use in publications provided you follow our usage guidelines. This page will give you an overview of the data available to you and how to access it.
User Contributed
Much of the AAVSO data is submitted by members of our community observing with their own equipment, or telescopes they have access to. This data is submitted to one of our databases described below.
AAVSO International Database (AID)
The AID is our oldest database, dating back to the founding of the AAVSO in 1911. It now contains over 70 million observations on over 37,000 stars. The data itself consists of brightness variations taken in a variety of ways from Visual to digital detectors and everything in between.
AAVSO Exoplanet Database (AED)
The AED consists of exoplanet transit data, with each observation a time series of a full/partial transit or a suspected transit event. The database now hosts over 10,000 transit observations on nearly 850 targets.
AAVSO Spectroscopy Database (AVSpec)
AVSpec hosts spectra on stars taken with a wide variety of equipment. This database now hosts over 17,000 observations on over 2,000 stars. Data falls commonly into two categories: full optical range (300 nm-700 nm) at low to medium resolution, and higher resolution focusing on a line or two. Echelle data is accepted, but is not common yet.
AAVSO Solar Database
The AAVSO Solar database hosts counts of sunspots and sunspot groups from the surface of the Sun taken by eye. Since the 1950s there have been nearly 300,000 unique sunspot count observations. Currently the raw data is not available, but the relative sunspot number is available through the LASP Interactive Solar Irradiance Datacenter (LISIRD).
Additional Photometry
Eggen Cards
This data comes from the life’s work of Olin Eggen, an astronomer who worked for much of the 20th century. This data was originally captured on index cards that have been subsequently scanned. These cards can be searched by star name. Much useful information is available, but needs quite a bit of work from the end user.
AAVSOnet Epoch Photometry
The AAVSOnet is a network of telescopes across the globe run by a group of extremely dedicated volunteers. These telescopes are constantly observing, often at the request of a proposal from a member, who will receive the images to reduce and submit on a variable star(s) in these images. Additionally, all of these images are reduced through a pipeline and photometry is extracted on all stars visible within all images, which is available on our website.
AAVSO Photometric All Sky Survey (APASS)
APASS is an all sky survey taken to get standardized multi-color photometry on stars from 10-17th magnitude. This data has had multiple data releases. The entire catalog can be downloaded at once, or it can be searched by coordinates.
In addition to the main data releases, the individual pointings are also available in the APASS Epoch Photometry Database. These data are available by coordinate search but have not been cross referenced.
Star Information
Variable Star Index (VSX)
VSX is a repository of information about known variable stars. The information includes variability type, magnitude range, and period to name a few. This information is backed by supporting documents such as images and/or publication references to validate variability claims.
Accessing Data
Most AAVSO databases have their own search and download specifications. However, for a small subset of tools we also have a Global Search. This allows you to search multiple databases at once to determine what data is available. If data is available it will then connect you to the local tool for download. Currently this is only available on a small subset of databases, but more will become available over time. For more specific information see Table 1 below.
| Database | Global Search | Local Search | Download Info |
| AID | Yes | Photometry | Text File with multiple columns. Also available through VStar. (link) |
| AED | Yes | Exoplanet | zip file with text file and supporting documents |
| APASS | No | APASS DR10 Download | Data available in multiple filters through coordinate search. Email for Full Catalog. |
| APASS Epoch Photometry | No | Available through VStar Plugin and VSX external links. | |
| AAVSOnet Epoch Photometry | No | Search | Can be displayed as an html page or downloaded as a csv. Available through VStar Plugin. |
| AVSpec | Yes | Spectroscopy | Contains zip file with individual FITS files per observation. |
| Eggen Cards | No | Eggen Card Portal | |
| Solar | No | N/A | Relative Sunspot number available at LISIRD |
| VSX | No | Search VSX |