[vsnet-alert 10795] re iya 2009

[bydra at Safe-mail.net]

John Greaves somewhat needlessly snided :-

"International Year AgainstCVs"

Well, really, people can observe and look at and study whatever they want, and hopefully get some enjoyment out of it all.  Let no person ever belittle the fun aspect of observing of any form or direction.  If folk observe stuff because they enjoy that observing, so be it.  Whether it not be CVs or it be CVs.

Heck, the last thing I submitted for publication was confirmation of a CRTS CV candidate.  The data was there, so I did it.  Instead of just deleting it I wrote a note.

It's the bias that only CVs can provide science, especially that it's the only science outlet for amateurs, that sets me off.

A lot of goodly and useful observing work was done on CVs, by both visual amateurs and CCD amateurs and professionals, late Nineties to early Noughties.  Brought the whole thing from the obscure to the photometrically thoroughly defined, and some astrophysics tied down tight along the way.  In fact it's been so successful there's almost a case of instead of publishing a whole separate paper on every individual CV's superhump measures, people ought to collect 'em up and just publish a table/list, like with eclipsing binary minima or RR Lyr maxima.  It's no big thing anymore.

But the religious zealot aspect of the CV community is somewhat distressing.  Every blip's a candidate CV, all CCDs must be turned upon it, every outburst must have it's superhumps measured no matter what for the greater good of science, every noisy piece of asas3 data might be a CV outburst and who cares if it's a fifty percent or more false alarm rate thus observer time wasted.  It is detrimental in the long run to the scientific progression of the amateur astronomy community which has stagnated into this rut.  Well, as long as they're happy, I suppose.  But they do tend to make noises and ask questions about how they can do more effective and useful science, so I dunno, that suggets they might not all be all that happy.

There's a plethora of variables out there, and amateurs nowadays have the observing skills and the outlets to drum up their own science (and some do do this, using online survey data, and fewer still their own data) and find their own way, and the net connections and computers to help themselves analyse their own work, and even a publication venue or two of utility and merit.

But everything's a CV, and 'ods Trousers, the world will end unless we measure it's superhumps.  Let's fill them electron wells with stuff on the already sorted.

Poor Comrade Citizen Scientist.

Cheers

John

John Greaves