AO Her in 2021 and anomaly in visual observations
Prompted by BAA VSS Circular No. 196, I checked the past
light curve of the R CrB star AO Her. The observations by
two most prominent visual observers around the 2021 fading
did not agree at all with CCD observations. They (and also
Jose Ripero, as I suggested in vsnet-alert regarding other
objects) didn't notice the start of the July-Aug. fading
for more than two weeks. They reported unreal fading in Apr.-June.
They also didn't notice the brightening in the later half
of 2020. The reported values, however, agreed very well
between these observers (but no correlation with CCD
observations). A naive interpretation of this strange
phenomenon would be that these observers were copying
other persons' observations each other. They were not
correlated with actual variations and researchers should
pay attention when using any database (e.g. AAVSO)
containing observations of these observers.
Of course, I had noticed the sign from the past
(already in 1996 in V705 Cas, which was interpreted as
a "telephone effect" by Gary Poyner if I remember correctly),
but the present case and other cases are too apparent
with sufficient evidence in the presence of modern CCD data.