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VStar User Manual

1. r Dr 2 rr D BOT TAY 9222929996 PAA 1 T e99909999099999999 0600000006555 0 2000007009 csccoceceocosceccecccosllllteontet 22 4 151 88811222 8000090000000001122222 22 9 9 sooo te dde Esas 4474745 2 456 110 2 456 120 2 456 130 2 456 140 2 456 150 2 456 160 2 456 170 2 456 180 2 456 190 2 456 200 20 As described in detail elsewhere http dbenn wordpress com 2013 03 29 obtaining and analysing kepler data with vstar the following phase plot reveals the nature of the star as an RR Lyr star variable RRAB with a period of around 0 48 days 56 Phase Plot for 010789273 2012277125453 llc fits period 0 48030371 epoch 2456155 740955 1 0 0 9 0 8 0 7 1 6 0 5 0 4 0 3 1 2 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0 6 0 7 0 8 0 9 1 0 The observation list is also affected when phase plot mode is enabled phase column 1 added e g Show all data Pattern Search Phase Plot Observations Means gt All Columns Model Residuals Apply o Phase Julian Day Calendar Date Magnitude Uncerta
2. 55 2 455 000 2 450 000 2 445 000 2 440 000 20 Johnson V Visual 2 430 000 2 435 000 2 425 000 2 420 000 Creating a phase plot with periods taken from DCDFT Date Compensated Discrete Fourier Transform in VStar does not result in an obviously clean fit over the time range as evidenced by DCDFT high power top hits via Analysis DCDFT Standard Scan 92 Power vs Frequency Amplitude vs Frequency Data Frequency Period Power Amplitude 0 00347889 287 44817944 95 56599636 0 28606906 0 00405331 246 71201030 95 24897672 0 28560414 0 00377823 264 67391255 88 49072180 0 27326891 0 00419085 238 61528409 87 05655568 0 27266744 0 00408567 244 75785576 82 71211337 0 26661627 0 00391577 255 37751479 82 10567538 0 26670995 0 00427175 234 09605523 82 10444095 0 26669623 0 00401286 249 19902653 81 27432617 0 26455088 0 00672315 148 73973184 79 15019617 0 25861804 0 00593029 168 62580786 76 08618323 0 25643074 0 00374587 266 96051223 72 45151331 0 24878955 0 00422321 236 78681448 71 72606576 0 24886935 0 00381869 261 87016348 71 52456098 0 24814370 Create Model CLEANest New Phase Plot WWZ helps to explain why It is available via two Analysis menu items and a toolbar button Tool Help yer Phase Plot Previous Phase Plots Models DC DFT Standard Scan DC DFT with Frequency Range DC DFT with Period R
3. 3 51 9999 09 seme ee o o o 3 61 oo ocn ee oom Om BOWES 6 99 FB 3 7 ee eee eeee oo eo of om ome 999 4 3 81 e ee 2 3 91 o 4 0 22 e 8 4 11 o ae a 4 21 s 99 oo epee 4 3 cece ee 44 8 e 4 5 e e e 4 6 e 4 74 6 4 84 e e woe e e ecce 4 9 4 ee ee 5 0 e 5 1 e 5 2 e e 2 2 5 4 5 5 2 451 460 2 451 470 2 451 480 2 451 490 2 451 500 2 451 510 2451520 2 451 530 2 451 540 2 451 550 2 451 560 Time JD Johnson V Visual One way to do this 1s by fitting a polynomial to the data and using that to determine what the time of maximum is The relationship between a sequence of x time values and corresponding dependent y magnitude values can be modeled as an nth order polynomial A polynomial model of degree n 1s defined as a function of time with the following form y f t Bot Byt HBA 8 where 15 time e g Julian Date and nis a coefficient The sum of these coefficients m
4. The caret means start of string dollar means end of string 44 means decimal digit characters 0 to 9 2 means two of those digit characters This reduces to comp star 2 must only consist of 2 decimal digits to be included in the observation list Regular expressions can be simple strings or extremely complex patterns but a VStar user need not be troubled by using anything more complex than he or she requires A complete treatment of regular expressions 1s beyond the scope of this document See Regular Expressions subsection References and Further Reading A search will disrupt the synchronization between plot and list as will clicking the Reset button If one or more observations are selected in the list by single clicking shift clicking or ctrl clicking those observations may e be excluded via Edit gt Exclude Selection e form the basis of an observation filter via the Create Selection Filter button See the Filtering Observations section for more information 2 Note that the Select 11 button is useful for selecting all observations currently in view in order to create a selection filter or exclude observations Each Observation List row also contains a Discrepant checkbox indicating whether observation 15 discrepant and permitting an observation to be reported as discrepant See the Observation Details Dialog section for details
5. WINN J Prevalidated 000BBQ747 _ 000880651 Prevalidated 000BBQ747 000BBQ651 1010APY 0 0 0 0 0 Prevalidated 00088074 Prevalidated OOOBBQ747 OOOBBQ651 1010 r mm UJ UJ j 2 2 j 2 j 2 j 2 UJ Www gt Wiw 2454882 9122 2009 FEB 20 7 739 10 007 Johnson V_ T 2454882 91362 2009 FEB20 7 738 0 007 TRE Prevalidated 000880747 2454882 91505 2009 FEB 20 7 764 0 007 JohnsonV TRE Prevalidated 000880747 000880651 1010APY 0 Johnson TRE jPrevalidated 000880747 Johnson V TRE Prevalidated 000880747 000880651 1010APY 0 0 454882 90649 2009 FEB 20 454882 90792 2009 FEB 20 454882 90507 12009 FEB 20 2 2 0 2454882 90935 2009 20 7 679 0 007 2 2 n 0 007 ren rm m mm mm mm mm 1 2 2454882 91791 2009 20 7 737 2454882 91933 2009 20 7 732 0 007 2454882 92075 2009 FEB 20 7 762 0 007 00880747 000880651 1010 rt 2454882 92218 2009 20 7 804 0 007 TRE 000880651 1010APY nto 2454882 9236 2009 FEB20 7 831 0 007 JohnsonV TRE Prevalidated 000880747 000880651 1010APY L4l 2454882 92503 2009 FEB20 7 753 0 007 TRE PPrevalidated 0008
6. Power vs Frequency Amplitude vs Frequency Data Frequency Period Amplitude 0 01251400 179 91050024 52 49507954 0 01390800 7290106414 30 55180816 EEE 0 01118100 89 43743851 10 65336091 0 06032472 20 54001929 9 67355540 0 00077700 1287 00128700__ 8 93435366 0 00946500 105 65240359 7 35939340 0 05110878 0 00190200 525 76235542 5 17392489 0 04528735 0 01496200 7 305 56 83598449 4 59743629 0 00544400 183 68846436 4 57453526 0 04110101 0 01866300 53 58195360 3 97852523 0 03842527 0 01039200 96 22786759 3 63694267 0 03622824 0 01707700 58 55829478 3 58053729 0 03727124 0 00155200 644 32989691 3 55512904 0 03797365 0 00366300 273 00027300 0 01893200 62 66 758 2 0 00430800 232 12627669 0 00712400 140 37057833 0 01805 700 55 38018497 0 01933100 51 3038125 0 00644400 155 18311608 0 00752 700 132 85505513 0 01970800 50 4081591 Create Model CLEANest 3 25010115 3 10086660 2 85713212 1 94835 706 1 8 239209 1 71326813 1 41085072 1 34469302 1 03723153 0 03404586 0 03339075 0 0320 046 0 02636216 0 02585985 0 02505 07 0 0220934 0 02222345 0 01984256 New Phase Plot Clicking the CLEANest button from the Top Hits pane opens this dialog 72 Hennement Parameters Selected Periods 79 9105002397315 71 90106413574922 383 5826620636748 120 5400192864031 1287 001287001287 66 8359844940516 644 3298969072165 Locked Periods Delete Variable Periods Delete Ca
7. 210 2 420 000 2 425 000 2 430 000 2 435 000 2 440 000 2 445 000 2 450 000 2 455 000 Time E Period vs Time Period vs Time New Phase Plot The AAVSO Fortran WWZ implementation s documentation has a section on suggested parameter values minimally adapted below The chosen frequency range should only cover the range of frequencies of astrophysical interest to reduce computation time For Mira and Semiregular variables choosing a frequency range between 0 0001 P 10000 days and 0 02 P 50 days with delta f of 0 00001 is reasonable and should not oversample the frequency spectrum too severely Be sure to choose frequency values that are physically relevant to the system you are studying and to the data available The decay constant c defines the width of the wavelet window It defines the number of cycles of a given frequency f expected within the window Smaller values of c will produce wider windows Reasonable values of c are between 0 001 and 0 0125 Note that using small values of c will result in improved frequency resolution of variations but will smear out temporal variations Conversely large values of c will improve the temporal resolution but will generate larger uncertainties in peak frequency WWZ scans the data set starting from the earliest data and progressing to the latest If you notice that the program returns zero values of the WWZ statistic then you probably have a large data 98
8. LE o ee 0 8 5 a 8 6 t 8 7 t 8 8 20 Johnson V Visual Notice that the cross hairs are on an observation at the leftmost time extent of a particular block of Johnson V observations Selecting View gt Filter corresponding toolbar button opens the Observation 42 Filter Dialog 43 Vi ew All 1 if 1 5 Raw Data Phase Plot Observation Details Plot Control Zoom In Zoom Out Pan Left Pan Right Pan Up Pan Down Previous Filters Filter From Plot Custom Filters P No Filter 4 Use selected observation Fainter Than Discrepant Excluded Here Use selected observation has been checked such that when Julian Day is selected from a drop down field menu the text box 1s populated with the JD of the selected observation under the cross hairs Selecting greater than or equal from the middle drop down menu then dismissing the dialog with the OK button yields the following 44 Light Curve for W UMA 6 754 7 00 4 7 254 2 7 50 7 75 a 2 8 00 t 2 8 25 T z HM 8 50 4 8 75 9 00 1 9 25 4 u i 9 50 i L s Time JD Filtered Johnson V Visual Notice that all observations w
9. tx Man OE G 133 Introduction VStar is a free open source multi platform application for visualizing and analyzing time series data It is primarily intended for use with variable star data but any data that can be represented in terms of a Julian Date and magnitude or other numerical values 15 suitable X Sl 54221524 Observations Means Model Residuals Light Curve for LX 1 rer il U 2 a 3 TELI bi L mI was 2 0240 oe iS fe Pa 7 2 2 a hatin ao puc t es um s eg Pays EI Hon e fe t esl ito Goose HE 1 t age F AL oH Bare 7 Qo Cabs ofr 2 448 000 2 449 000 2 450 000 2 451 000 2 452 000 2 453 000 2 454 000 2 455 000 20 Johnson V Visual The following figure shows that VStar is able to load observations from a variety of sources including the AAVSO International Database AID files and other sources such as http streams The Observation Sources section describes what kinds of data can be loaded into VStar and from what sources When in online mode loading from AID VStar also requests information from the Variable Star Index VSX about the requested object such as period variable type spe
10. 8 34 a i 8 4 M 8 5 8 6 i 8 71 4 8 81 2 454 550 2 454 600 2 454 650 2 454 700 2 454 750 2 454 800 2 454 850 2 454 900 2 454 950 2 455 000 2 455 050 2 455 100 2 455 150 20 Using the first method above drawing bounding box around the section near the cross hairs to the lower left JD range 2454881 to 2454949 magnitude range 7 5 to 8 75 gives a view like this Light Curve for W UMA 7 55 7 60 7 65 7 704 7 754 7 80 7 85 7 90 7 95 8 004 8 05 8 10 8 15 9 8 204 5 825 2 8 301 8 535 8 40 E 8 454 8 50 8 554 8 604 8 65 8 704 8 75 ease amp 9 24 9 et ss LL Lis g pado anoa e gt 9 99 99 9 w Com dd oo n on Kee et cdd d 6 6 FEEDS Lion Mtm AE nn di iie i Nd Mad T dee NN Te feo 460 d 990 He Matt PER Re Dae of 6 9o a e amp ooo oo a 00 88 2 454 880 2 454 890 2 454 900 2 454 910 2 454 920 2 454 930 2 454 940 2 454 950 Time 3D Johnson V Visual Even at this magnification level one can begin to glimpse that something other than vertical lines exists in this plot Zooming in further this time from around JD 2454904 to 2454905 18 magnitude 7 7 to 8 4 the following is revealed Light Curve for W UMA 7 70
11. 4 00 4 0 402 0 0 0 6 94 4 0000 20p299929992929999099299299 3 85 ML tecose i 000600000 hagpeccccesosece 3 90 000 E 3 95 35 09099999999992 02 090000000 0999099909090 9 0299999092999 002900 0 4 2 4 004 eseeeeeeeests muss DRUMS voe dipl ei eh rr ndn ded 2 eee 2000200000000 000 2020 0000000000000 4 054 pid d
12. e 2 7 80 1 m E t H 4 E 7 85 aie 9 e 7 904 Sie 2 th 5 L 5 7 95 e 4 e e 8 00 e 8 05 9 4 c 8 10 8 15 8 20 4 8 25 8 30 1 8 351 3 d ME 8 40 2454904 50 2454904 75 2454905 00 2454905 25 2454905 50 2454905 75 2454906 00 2454906 25 2454906 50 20 Johnson V Visual When looking at a magnified view the pan left right up down View menu items or toolbar buttons can be used to move to regions of the plot not visible Bus Analysis Raw Data Phase Plot Observation Details Plot Control Zoom In Zoom Qut Pan Right Pan Up Pan Down For example the following 15 the result of panning the above plot left and down several times 19 Light Curve for W UMA 7 85 Seta E 7 90 7 95 eee e wv eee 8 001 e uU 2 o Pt es ob Brightness magnitude eo N e e eb co un pa oe d 8 401 8 454 co n un emo 9 Wu ame e uam cu we cewet que soap 8 501 8 554 2454903 50 245490375 2454904 00 2454904 25 2454904 50 2454904 75 2454905 00 2454905 25 2454905 50 2454905 75 Time JD The following shows a phase plot of this dataset at a period from VS X of 0 33363749 days Phase Plo
13. gap just prior to the point where the zero values begin Consider truncating the data set to include only data before or after the gap or split the data and analyze both sets separately For another example of using WWZ in VStar see the following which includes the Dor example from Foster 2010 mentioned at the start of this section http dbenn wordpress com 2011 08 30 weighted wavelet z transform wwz in vstar 99 Plug ins VStar s capabilities can be extended various ways by installing plug ins e g Loading observations from sources such as Kepler and ASAS Filtering the loaded dataset in a custom way Creating models e g Loess fit Performing period analysis using an algorithm other than the in built ones See http www aavso org vstar plugin library for details of how to install plug ins manually Alternatively use VStar s plug in manager which 1s accessible from the Tool menu After selecting the Plugin Manager menu item VStar will ask for an AAVSO web user and password The plug in manager dialog will then open eoo Plug in Manager AAVSO Upload File Visual and Extended Format reader APASS epoch photometry observation source plug in ASAS file reader Accumulates selected observations and calculates mean time between selections AoV period search BSM epoch photometry observation source plug in Catalina Sky Survey file reader Compute ANOVA for current plot mode s mean series Updat
14. 2013 MAY 10 6 100000 0 000000 2013 MAY 10 6 100000 0 000000 faa T The observation details dialog is invoked from the View menu or via the corresponding toolbar button 31 32 x Raw Data View Phase Plot Law Observation Details Plot Control Zoom In Zoom Out Pan Left Pan Right Pan Up Pan Down Filter Previous Filters Custom Filters b No Filter R CAR Julian Date 2456423 062860 Calendar Date 2013 MAY 10 Magnitude 6 100000 validation Prevalidated Band Visual Observer Code Comment Codes Sky is bright moon twilight light pollution aurorae Low in the sky near horizon in trees obstructed view Comparison Star 1 66 Comparison Star 2 59 Charts 10 star Comments 7x50 binoculars Discrepant If a phase plot has been created the phase will also be shown If the time 15 Heliocentric Julian Date rather a Julian Date this will be indicated Other details will differ depending upon the kind of observation e g visual vs photometric the observer comment codes band and so on Note that the same information 1s available in the Observation List however it can be useful to have multiple observation details dialogs open simultaneously especially when observations are separated widely in time Selecting the Discrepant checkbox relegates the observation to the discrepant series This can be made visible on the plot via the Plot Con
15. In addition one or more periods each with one or more harmonics can be selected to create a model A model s Fourier coefficients can be viewed along with relative amplitudes and phases Optionally multiple periods found by DCDFT can subsequently be refined via the CLEANest Foster 1995 algorithm When a model 15 created it is also subtracted from observations the series on which the DCDFT was performed to yield a second residuals series DCDFT can then be applied to these residuals to look for further signals periods a process often called pre whitening The following shows eta Aquilae data from AAVSO International Database AID the JD range 2455695 8431 to 2456419 8604 a DCDFT power spectrum and a phase plot resulting from a top hit selection 58 Brightness magnitude 59 3 1 3 2 3 3 T UJ un a ES co io gt n 4 3 4 4 4 5 4 6 4 7 Light Curve for eta 0 10 0 11 o ne a ee esos 21 3 ee o Rm eee e o o 1 ee c ed P No s e sew cocos s om em wees e gt Wie s o c M p E xis ee e 94 9 cc scs ewes 7 e os F R cm sys 5 2 d eee
16. Johnson V Visual 2 454 000 2 455 000 The same dataset in phase plot mode folded on a period of 582 188 days 1s shown below 14 Brightness magnitude 9 00 9 25 9 50 9 75 10 00 10 25 10 50 10 75 11 00 11 25 11 50 11 75 12 00 12 25 12 50 12 75 13 00 13 25 13 50 13 75 14 00 14 25 14 50 Phase Plot for LX CYG period 582 18816679 epoch 2451245 867635 1 0 0 9 0 8 4 7 0 6 0 5 0 4 0 3 0 2 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 2 0 3 Phase Johnson V Visual Means Other than the fact that this shows a phase plot the other differences from the light curve view are that A mean series has been added See Plot Control Dialog section Period and epoch are shown as a sub title The X axis is labelled Phase instead of Time Selecting a data point with the mouse sets the cross hairs e g 15 f dx Light Curve for W UMA 7 6 7 7 7 8 7 91 8 0 8 1 Brightness magnitude re me 99 9 99 7 ONE LO LO LEE E ALL LE J p RUN V SEM EBENEN eo ume RIP Led Tl alf Rr OE anum e t 8 71 8 81 u 2 454 550 2 454 600 2 454 650 2 454 700 2 454 750 2 454 800 2 454 850 2 454 900 2 454 950 2 455 000 2 455 050 2 455 100 2 455 150 20 Johnson V Visual Once selected a number of operations can be c
17. Magnitude In both cases AAVSO download and simple formats lines can either be comma or tab separated For the simple format a space may instead be used as a delimiter Notice that delimiters must be retained for optional values e g in the following simple file example observer code and validation flag are omitted 2456423 123 4 2 BDJB Comments may be used in simple format and AAVSO files by starting a line with a character Everything else on that line will be ignored Magnitude values may be prefixed by negative signs e g 4 2 Observations of other kinds can be loaded via observation source plug ins See the AAVSO plug in library for more Selecting this menu item invokes the following file chooser 10 Additive Load Name Date Modified alf ori all csv Tuesday August 31 2010 1 del cep 2440587 2444 Tuesday August 31 2010 1 2439800 24475 Tuesday August 31 2010 1 Ix 2447500 24550 Tuesday August 31 2010 1 Add to current omi cet 2451544 5 24 Tuesday August 31 2010 1 omiCet 2451544 5 245 Tuesday August 31 2010 6 ReadMe txt Saturday December 18 201 X cyg 2447000 24480 Tuesday August 31 2010 1 File Format csv dat tsv txt Cancel Open Selecting a conformant file and clicking the Open button will load the observations leading to the same result as a Load from AID operation If the fi
18. Time JD 2 451 520 2 451 530 2 151 540 2 151 550 2 451 560 As for a model or residuals plot mean plot data points can be viewed in tabular format in the Means list by selecting the corresponding tab for example Julian Day 2451460 630790 2451462 703323 2451464 458864 245 1466 812405 2451468 737686 2451470 514332 2451472 748873 2451475 285429 2451477 762800 2451479 431043 Plot Calendar Date 1999 OCT 9 1999 OCT 11 1999 OCT 12 1999 OCT 15 1999 OCT 17 1999 OCT 19 1999 OCT 21 1999 OCT 23 1999 26 1999 OCT 27 Observations Means Model Mean Magnitude 0 044445 0 114983 0 033523 0 009216 0 008915 0 012571 0 033468 0 079523 0 005127 0 045181 Residuals Standard Error of the Average 0 071520 0 093679 0 041960 0 062839 0 039249 0 037948 0 028781 0 019781 0 060773 0 042450 Looking at the ANOVA statistic in the Information Dialog File gt Info it would appear that there is no significant signal remaining so the fit 15 apparently a good one We can say this since the p value of 0 98 suggests that what is observed in the residuals is likely to be due to noise rather than the presence of a non trivial signal 85 Summary for OMI Source Type AAVSO Download Format File Source Name omi cet 2451460 2451560 tsv loaded Mon Sep 16 18 35 01 CST 2013 Series Loaded Observations 1005 Discrepant 25 Fainter Than 1 Johnson V 3 Model
19. 28 Visual Prevalidated 37 1990 2455711 4271 2011 MAY 29 Visual Prevalidated 44 1990 2455711 8382 2011 MAY 30 Visual Prevalidated 37 ATLAS 2455712 3785 2011 MAY 30 Visual Prevalidated 37 1990 2455712 8576 2011 MAY 31 Visual Prevalidated 33 ATLAS 2455713 8486 2011 JUN 1 Visual Prevalidated 33 ATLAS 2455714 8486 2011 JUN 2 Visual Prevalidated 33 ATLAS 2455715 8465 2011 JUN 3 Visual Prevalidated 37 ATLAS 2455717 3521 2011 JUN 4 Visual Prevalidated 37 1990 2455717 54167 2011 JUN 5 Visual Prevalidated 37 2455717 5785 2011 JUN 5 Visual Prevalidated 40 2455719 55903 2011 JUN 7 Visual Prevalidated 34 2455720 4882 2011 JUN 7 Visual Prevalidated 34 2455720 63542 2011 JUN 8 Visual Prevalidated 34 2455721 5771 2011 JUN 9 Visual Prevalidated 34 2455722 49931 2011 JUN 9 Visual Prevalidated 37 2455722 509 2011 JUN 10 Visual Prevalidated 37 2455723 5347 2011 JUN 11 Visual Prevalidated 37 2455724 5271 2011 JUN 12 Visual Prevalidated 37 2455724 53056 2011 JUN 12 Visual Prevalidated 37 2455725 77083 2011 JUN 13 Visual Prevalidated 37 2455725 8528 2011 JUN 13 Visual Prevalidated 37 2455726 51042 2011 JUN 14 Visual Prevalidated 37 2455733 77361 2011 JUN 21 Visual Prevalidated 37 2455734 70486 2011 JUN 22 Visual Prevalidated 34 2455734 76944 2011 JUN 22 Visual Prevalidated 34 2455735 45972 2011 JUN 22 Visual Prevalidated 37 2455735 73889 2011 JUN 23 Visual Prevalidated 37 2455735 76806 2011 JUN 23 Visual Prevalidated 34 5008
20. 456 100 2 456 200 2 456 300 2 456 400 Time JD Johnson V Visual Using the period and epoch for eta Aquilae shown on VSX http www aavso org vsx index php view detail top amp o1d 2802 the following phase plot be created 22 Brightness magnitude 3 1 3 2 3 3 3 4 ws Wo e Lad 4 4 4 5 4 6 4 7 Phase Plot for eta Jul 27 2013 database period 7 17664100 epoch 2436084 656000 wees sone eM leue hd S MENU NI a amm oom Zi TEN A of 4 uod usc 1 0 40 9 0 8 0 7 0 6 0 5 0 4 0 3 0 2 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0 6 Phase Johnson V Visual To create a phase plot like this one select Analysis gt Phase Plot Tool Help Phase Plot i Previous Phase Plots k p gn J v Uu ETT yielding the phase plot parameter dialog and click OK to create the phase plot 53 Phase Plot Period Days Epoch D 2436084 656 A E Qu Cancel If a dataset 15 loaded from AID VStar will retrieve this information from VSX and populate the phase plot parameter dialog text fields A phase plot for which the specified period is incorrect compared to the actual period results in a messy or out of phase plo
21. 60280399 Amplitude Ir 0 19552786 0 19041868 0 11155846 0 07826145 0 07189908 0 05493511 0 05098598 0 05127045 0 04593121 0 04426406 0 04461421 0 04242292 0 0404 890 0 03921081 0 03813 93 0 03621076 0 03427980 0 03343941 0 03358764 0 03265935 0 03193053 0 03174396 0 0308 283 0 030 8519 Create Model CLEANest New Phase Plot Find Harmonics Dismiss Clicking the New Phase Plot button with the shown top hit selected will result in the phase seen earlier in this section Harmonics The Find Harmonics button will show a list of harmonics of the main frequency or period 1 which is requene t in the data VStar adopts the convention from Foster 2010 that the first harmonic is the fundamental frequency This can be used as a decision support aid for model creation 63 Harmonics Frequency 0 13946226 1f Period 7 17039849 Frequency 0 27892453 2f Period 3 58519925 Frequency 0 41838679 3f Period 2 39013283 Frequency 0 55784905 4f Period 1 79259962 Creating Fourier Series Models The Create Model button creates a Fourier series from the selected period and one or more harmonics selected from the following dialog In this case 4 harmonics are selected which 15 to say the fundamental and the next 3 harmonics 6 Harmonics Harmonics per period 7 17039849 Cancel Clicking O
22. 98774 2454768 98801 2454768 98826 2454768 98853 2454768 9888 2008 OCT 29 2008 OCT 29 2008 OCT 29 2008 OCT 29 2008 OCT 29 2008 OCT 29 2008 OCT 29 2008 OCT 29 2008 OCT 29 2008 OCT 29 7 796 7 781 7 77 7 784 7 778 7 776 7 796 7 765 7 781 7 79 0 014 0 015 0 015 0 015 0 016 0 016 0 017 0 017 0 018 0 018 Johnson V TRE Johnson V TRE Johnson V TRE Johnson V TRE Johnson V TRE Johnson V TRE Johnson V TRE Johnson V TRE Johnson V TRE Johnson V TRE Prevalidated Prevalidated Prevalidated Prevalidated Prevalidated Prevalidated Prevalidated Prevalidated Prevalidated Prevalidated 000BBQ747 000BBQ747 000BBQ747 000BBQ747 000BBQ747 000BBQ747 000BBQ747 000BBQ747 000BBQ747 000BBQ747 000BBQ651 000BBQ651 000BBQ651 000BBQ651 000BBQ651 000BBQ651 000BBQ651 000BBQ651 000BBQ651 000BBQ651 1010APY 1010APY 1010APY 1010APY 1010APY 1010APY 1010APY 1010APY 1010APY 1010APY no no no no no no no no no no 2454768 98905 2008 29 7 792 0 019 Johnson V TRE 2 7 0 2 7 0 2 7 0 2 7 0 2 7 0 Prevalidated 000880747 000880651 1010 00880747 _ 000880651 1010 00880747 _ 000880651 1010 0 Prevalidated 000BBQ747 000BBQ651 1010 Prevalidated 000BBQ747 000BBQ651 1010APY P 0 1 P 0 0 1 P 0 0 1 P 0 0 101 0 0 Prevalidated 000BBQ747 000BBQ651 1010 me J u
23. Apply or OK button to save the change Doing so will make the change available immediately and across VStar runs The Delete Star button deletes a star from the currently selected group The Delete Group button deletes the currently selected group Now suppose we want to add a new group with multiple stars all at once To do so click the Group amp Stars button and populate the dialog that opens as shown New Group Group Name Southern Gems Star List See the References and Further Reading section for details of Southern Gems The Star List text to be entered is X Sor Sor eta Agl Phe bet Dor V Pup alf Ori Dor 1 Car R Car After each object has been checked the busy mouse cursor will stop click the Apply button to save the new group and its stars Doing so will make the change available immediately and across VStar runs 109 New Star from AAVSO Database dialog will now have Novae and Southern Gems groups from which objects can be selected for loading The Clear button will set the groups back to factory settings the Citizen Sky 10 Stars group remains As with all the other operations above clicking the Apply or OK button will make the change available beyond the current run of VStar The Plug in Settings preferences tab appears as follows eoo Preferences Series Colors Series Size Numeric Precision Star Groups
24. ES LEE ch e ee THOMAE ee ee eee ES ois ce Li geese oe eee 2 17 2 455 700 2 455 800 2 455 900 2 456 000 2 456 100 2 456 200 2 456 300 2 456 400 Time 20 Johnson V Visual LM Amplitude vs Frequency Data Period Analysis DC DFT for eta Aql series Johnson V Top Hits 0 12 0 13 0 14 0 15 0 16 0 17 0 18 Frequency B Power vs Frequency Power vs Frequency Logarithmic Show top hits 0 19 New Phase Plot Phase Plot for eta Aug 16 2013 database period 7 17039849 epoch 2436084 656000 Tea TO E TEM s Ue GEMENS S 5 e o UP 86866 RT IIT VIE dt NEED A a 2 ss 2 Brightness magnitude 1 1 0 1 9 0 8 0 7 1 6 1 5 1 4 1 3 1 2 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 2 0 3 1 4 0 5 0 6 0 7 0 8 0 9 1 0 Phase DCDFT in Detail DCDFT menu items are available in the Analysis menu As shown below the options are DCDFT standard scan DCDFT with frequency range or with period range Puree Tool Help Phase Plot Previous Phase Plots LIE DC DFT Standard Scan DC DFT with Frequency Range DC DFT with Period Range Lookin
25. Julian Day 2455715 4826 2455715 8465 2455716 4882 2455716 81111 2455717 3521 2455717 466 2455717 4674 2455717 54167 2455717 5785 2455718 4792 2455718 79444 2455719 55903 2455720 4882 2455720 5021 2455720 63542 2455721 5771 2455722 49931 2455722 509 2455723 5347 2455724 5271 2455724 53056 2455725 441 2455725 77083 2455725 8528 2455726 51042 2455727 78056 2455729 69375 2455730 4444 2455731 775 2455733 3125 2455733 77361 2455734 4271 2455734 70486 2455734 76944 Calendar Date 2011 JUN 2 2011 JUN 3 2011 JUN 3 2011 JUN 4 2011 JUN 4 2011 JUN 4 2011 JUN 4 2011 JUN 5 2011 JUN 5 2011 JUN 5 2011 JUN 6 2011 JUN 7 2011 JUN 7 2011 JUN 8 2011 JUN 8 2011 JUN 9 2011 JUN 9 2011 JUN 10 2011 JUN 11 2011 JUN 12 2011 JUN 12 2011 JUN 12 2011 JUN 13 2011 JUN 13 2011 JUN 14 2011 JUN 15 2011 JUN 17 2011 JUN 17 2011 JUN 19 2011 JUN 20 2011 JUN 21 2011 JUN 21 2011 JUN 22 2011 JUN 22 Magnitude 3 9 3 8 4 2 3 9 4 2 4 36 4 2 4 3 4 1 4 4 4 1 3 8 3 6 3 6 3 5 Uncertainty Band Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual vital SHA REP REP REP SSHA KTHA AAP Validation
26. Prevalidated NA Prevalidated 37 Prevalidated 371 Prevalidated 3 7 Prevalidated 37 Prevalidated 436 Prevalidated 4 02 Prevalidated 37 Prevalidated 40 Prevalidated NA Prevalidated 3 7 Prevalidated 34 Prevalidated 34 Prevalidated 3 36 34 NER 34 Prevalidated 37 Prevalidated 37 Prevalidated 37 Prevalidated 37 Prevalidated 37 Prevalidated NA Prevalidated 37 Prevalidated 37 Prevalidated 37 Prevalidated 3 4 Prevalidated 4 4 Prevalidated NA Prevalidated 3 7 Prevalidated 3 2 Prevalidated 37 Prevalidated NA Prevalidated 34 Prevalidated 34 Comp Star 1 Comp Star 2 Charts 40 436 4 4 44 436 4 36 44 Comment Comments TYCHO2 K ATLAS K BSC A K BRIGHT S TEN STAR 1990 A BRIGHT S OSE2001 10 star ATLAS TYCHO2 10star OSE2001 10 star 2455720 84514 2011 JUN 8 EE NN 7 NN BSC moon close BU moon light 10 star tu B AAVSO08 1 TYCHO2 K 10 star 5008 most obvious feature is the tabular list of observations consisting of columns relating to each observation e g Magnitude Band Comp Star 1 The figure shows a row having been selected by the user Switching to the Plot tab would reveal that the cross hair was pointing to the same observation the light curve or phase plot Columns can be rearranged by dragging the column headers and observations can be sorted by column by single clicking on the column hea
27. atlas Uranometria Bayer assigned a lower case Greek letter such as alpha beta gamma etc to each star he catalogued combined with the Latin name of the star s parent constellation in genitive possessive form For example Aldebaran is designated Tauri alpha Tauri which means alpha of the Bull A single constellation may contain fifty or more stars but the Greek alphabet has only twenty four letters When these ran out Bayer began using lower case Latin letters hence s Carinae and d Centauri Within constellations having an extremely large number of stars Bayer eventually advanced to upper case Latin letters as in G Scorpii and N Velorum The last upper case letter used by Bayer was Q As luck would have it many of these bright stars turned out to be variable stars so they are often known by their Bayer designations Examples are alpha Orionis beta Lyrae delta Cephei and eta Aquilae AAVSO and VSX use a specific set of abbreviations for these names To learn more see http www aavso org greek letters Argelander s System for Naming Variable Stars Frederich W A Argelander invented the traditional system used to name variable stars today Under this system variable stars are named using a variation on the Bayer designation format combining an identifying label with the Latin genitive possessive of the name of the constellation in which the star resides He started with the letter R to avoid confusion w
28. create a mean series If the mean series 1s not already visible changing this selection makes it so A mean series source change 15 acted upon immediately e Checkboxes for showing or hiding error bars or cross hairs e Binned mean series update o Checkbox to join mean data points o Spinner and text box for number of days or phase steps per bin The Apply button must be clicked for a change to this value to be acted upon The first two sections vary according to the number of series in the currently loaded dataset 34 Cousins Cousins R Cousins Cousins R Discrepant Excluded _ Fainter Than Analysis Fainter Than H NIR 1 6micron Q C J 1 2micron H NIR 1 6micron J NIR 1 2micron Johnson B Johnson V Q Johnson B ohnson V Tri Color Blue QJ Tri Color Green Q Tri Color Blue Tri Color Green Unfiltered with V Zeropoint O M Visual Unfiltered with V Zeropoint Visua 9 visual Discrepant Excluded Filtered Model Model _ Residuals Select All Deselect All Mean Series Update Show Join means Error bars Days per Mean Series Bin Cross hairs 20 5 Apply The resulting plot after clicking 1 would look somewhat like this depending upon JD range 35 Light Curve for R Car ou 4 50 1 TTE 4 75 4 5 00 1 5 25 1 5 501 5 751 6 00 0
29. ee e oo em 9 0 ec o e o o 9 1 e e 9 2 E 9 3 2 447 500 2 447 750 2 448 000 2 448 250 2 448 500 2 448 750 2 449 000 2 449 250 2 449 500 Time JD DCDFT with frequency range can be initiated from VStar s Analysis menu selecting the 70 Visual band and specifying minimum and maximum frequencies the range over which to scan 0 0001 to 0 02 and frequency resolution 0 000001 over the range la RON S Select a Series c Parameters Analysis Low Frequency Discrepant Filtered 0 0001 _ Excluded Means High Frequency O Fainter Than Model 0 02 visual Residuals Resolution Cancel C ok 0 000001 Cancel This results in the following power spectrum in the Power vs Frequency pane with the orange squares showing peaks or top hits Period Analysis DC DFT for AA Cas series Visual 55 50 45 40 35 30 Power 0 0000 0 0025 0 0050 0 0075 0 0100 0 0125 0 0150 0 0175 0 0200 Frequency B Power vs Frequency Power vs Frequency These top hits are shown in the next diagram in tabular form Notice that seven top hits are shown as being selected using combinations of shift click and 71 control click Windows or command click Mac The initial input values to CLEANest are not stated in Foster 1995 section 5 page 1900 but the rows selected above fairly closely correspond to what the paper presents
30. i scd o 9000000000000 0006 Wa M 0000 9 98 898 o 9 9 of 0900000069 ecco o 4 e 99 o e8e99 9 e ese eee e 90000000000 9 o eis 000 ee 24 4 REN ax ee om ae z ees o ese 0000000 eee esset es s 9 9000 2 4 es sss 900000000 00 o ot t 000 000 000000 9 seed 0000 84 ees ee e e 000000 9 9 ty t ES t eco o 5875 3 os x 0000060 o 20800 a es econ eet e e 24 t 3 000000000000 99 g e 9 00000 00000 024 24 Pe a e see e eee e ee ee 0999 o ee o ee 3 e sese 89 8 9 2 estt o Boe e 3 2 44 ee ss8 555 o Seg sees oe ese CN ecc e e 2 Wu d ee eee t s e e999090 o 6000 o o 4 9809928 8 ee ee ae e083 ee o enee o p Se oote ooo PELA E un un e un e un e un e un e N N m m T re re
31. magnitude A C tn tn Cc m C in ci Oc a Un E Lu 2 456 519 2 456 520 2 456 521 2 456 522 2 456 523 2 456 524 2 456 525 2 456 526 2 456 527 2 456 528 2 456 529 2 456 530 2 456 531 2 456 532 Time JD Johnson V Visual A polynomial of degree 8 gives this 99 Light Curve for Nova Del 2013 Brightness magnitude 2 456 519 2 456 520 2 456 521 2 456 522 2 456 523 2 456 524 2 456 525 2 456 526 2 456 527 2 456 528 2 456 529 2 456 530 2 456 531 2 456 532 Time 20 Johnson V Model Visual Note that this could also be useful in determining the rate of decline after maximum magnitude is reached 90 Time Frequency Analysis VStar provides time frequency analysis functionality in the form of Weighted Wavelet Z Transform WWZ Foster 1996 The user specifies a series e g Visual Johnson V a frequency or period range and a resolution the result 1s a visualization of how the period changes over time This can be viewed as a 2D graph a contour plot a rotatable 3D graph or in tabular form Periods at particular points time can be selected for phase plot creation detailed explanation of the statistical analysis techniques being utilized here is beyond the scope of this document The interested reader 1s referred to Foster 2010 and References and Further Reading The following shows the period change for T UM1 in the year range 1913 to 2009 Here the color represents th
32. removed before pasting into Excel In the presence of a model with harmonics the model information dialog will include a pane tiled Relative Amplitudes amp Phases by fundamental frequency This is standard way of describing the shape of a waveform especially for pulsating stars with close to perfect periodicity For more information about this see Foster 2010 Having created a model looking at the residuals series can provide information about any remaining signal via binned means ANOVA The residuals series can like any other series have DCDFT applied to it to search for additional periods Other DCDFT options Period and Frequency Range Up to this point only the DCDFT standard scan has been mentioned As can be seen from the Analysis menu DCDFT with frequency range and period range are also available VStar s DCDFT Java implementation 15 a direct translation of AAVSO s TS program The following is adapted from the documentation accompanying the Fortran TS implementation created by Matthew Templeton which in turn was translated from a BASIC implementation by Grant Foster see References section The simplest choice is DCDFT Standard Scan The smallest frequency longest period 68 1 tested by the standard scan is where is the total time span of the data The standard scan 1 N will test frequencies from 4T to 4 where is the number of data steps of 4 T Because VStar uti
33. used to specify the number of degrees for the polynomial to be created 7 in this case Clicking the OK button creates the polynomial fit of the Visual series and adds a Model series as follows 82 Light Curve for OMI CET 2 9 3 0 ae a a amp 3 1 LEE ok 3 7 Be 806 LE 3 3 3 4 os nd anes Ce eT 3 5 55 STR 3 7 a 3 8 FEE SEs ier LI EM a a 4 5 4 6 oon 4 7 4 8 4 9 5 0 5 1 5 2 5 3 5 4 5 5 A Hc Brightness magnitude BG 20 Johnson V Model Visual Foster 2010 discusses essentially the same example except that R a statistical programming language is used rather than VStar The Mode1 tab contains a list of the polynomial fit data points visible on the plot Plot Observations Means Residuals Julian Day Calendar Date Magnitude 2451460 076400 1999 OCT 8 5 011615 2451460 310000 1999 OCT 8 4 987632 245 1460 400000 1999 8 4 978363 245 1460 500000 1999 9 4 968048 12451460 533300 1999 9 4 964610 245 1460 638900 1999 9
34. 0 0075 0 0100 0 0125 0 0150 0 0175 0 0200 Frequency B Power vs Frequency Power vs Frequency Logarithmic Show top hits New Phase Plot Now click Create Model in the Top Hits pane and the following dialog will open 75 A Harmonics 80 25000000 76 20000000 378 00000000 121 10000000 1280 00000000 71 90000000 650 00000000 Cancel Click OK and the main plot will have an additional model series added Dismiss the main DCDFT dialog to return to the main VStar window Light Curve for AA Cas 7 61 Fd 7 8 7 9 1 e 8 0 1 e 8 11 ee TN ec ee ee TEN 3 2 E es ee e s E ee o eee 2 oe we t 8 3 eo e ee oon ee 4 tne i cm ems sme e e ee T 54 Sem of go 28 es Ll ee ook 4 e p 55 e emm e 4 e Qu me me oe t III 15 4 a 8 6 ege 2 eb epi z bon 1 ad 8 aes 4 1 eie wed ee gt e D 8 71 X ES 28 em ele o Bo 1 gt gt ga a PN S ac Hee la v 2 8 8 4 gt ee ome sem 0 ee oom go s SC T 4 e ee i 8 91 e e ese e ee 4
35. 012 6 04 PM Thursday April 11 2013 8 40 AM Wednesday December 12 2012 10 56 Wednesday July 4 2012 11 17 PM Friday May 28 2010 1 49 AM Tuesday April 26 2011 11 53 AM Thursday August 9 2012 11 11 PM Tuesday September 17 2013 5 51 PM Friday May 28 2010 1 49 AM Saturday April 9 2011 9 33 Y File Format All Files H4 Cancel jJ The file chooser shows example js being selected Clicking the Open button will cause the script to be executed The example script will load data for eta Aquilae in the JD range 2455821 5 2456552 5 create a phase plot and save it as a PNG file It will repeat this for beta Lyrae To try this create a file called example js or whatever name you choose with a text editor e g Notepad vi paste in the following code and save the file 113 root Users david tmp 3 perioas ITSL76041 12 9406 713 epochs 2436084 656 2455434 8702 for 1 07 71 007 S tenguhg ik 4 obj objs i VStar loadr roma 249592152 245652225 vstar phasePlot periods i epochs i path root obj replace phase plot png vstar savePhasePlot path 600 400 The root path should be replaced with a path of your choosing poo e Users david tmp Once the script has completed executing you will see a phase plot for beta Lyrae appear in VStar and the following files will be the location corres
36. 2 445 000 2 450 000 2 455 000 B Period vs Time Period vs Time The contour plot at the start of this section adds WWZ statistic to the Period vs Time plot above The Result dialog provides a number of other plots and tables One of these 1s a 3D plot that provides the same information as the contour plot but allows rotation in all axes 95 LI ill WWZ algorithm generates the following statistics for the specified series and frequency or period range and time resolution which VStar presents 1n plot or tabular form adapted from the AAVSO Fortran WWZ implementation documentation Time The time being examined in JD Frequency The frequency being tested in cycles per time unit Period The corresponding period under test in JD WWZ Value of the WWZ this is approximately an F statistic with Effective number of data and 2 degrees of freedom and expected value 1 In short 1t indicates whether or not there is a periodic fluctuation of the given frequency at the given time semi amplitude Weighted wavelet amplitude 1f the signal is periodic at the frequency being tested this gives the real semi amplitude of the corresponding best fit sinusoid Mean magnitude Mean apparent magnitude of the object at the corresponding time Effective number of data The effective number of data for the given time and frequency being tested The maximal WWZ table shows the points at whic
37. 290209000400000 900000 0 ee ORG 3 15 wo o Puta t e e z 0900900099 0999000009 5009090090000000000999 3 20 1 0000062000805 4 4 4 e sv uet ot 448541 fee eee SHIMTIL 3 30 ee TELLE 020200 00 000000009900 20000000090 4 3 40 TALITTE ES eeesee ee T 3 45 447 09202222906 2 3 50 1 ae 5 3 55 3 601 29000 E a 4 4 270 9 ed esseetseeeeteaaee eeeeeees Topo 5 3 70 200000200000 000 090902 0 6 0090002 g pesi 0020090009 270646 t 3 804 9092099 2244 4 69 4 ess 444 3 0009009292090 4
38. 4 850 2 454 900 2 454 950 2 455 000 2 455 050 2 455 100 2 455 150 20 Filtered Johnson V Visual Note that the Filter Name text box at the top of the observation filter dialog can be modified to give a filter a meaningful name e g 2454880 2454930 V A filter series can be hidden from view just like any other series via the Plot Control Dialog The current filter can be completely removed by selecting View No Filter Previously created filter series for the currently loaded dataset can be retrieved and viewed by selecting View gt Previous Filters 47 Show Description Filters can also be deleted and new series can be created from them to be treated just like any other series in the Plot Control Dialog preferences and so on Each filter has a description that can be viewed via the Show Description button e g 48 49 2454880 2454930 V Description Julian Day gt 2454880 0 AND Julian Day lt 2454930 0 AND Band Johnson V Means Model Residuals Pattern Search _ Show all data Julian Day Calendar Date Band Columns Johnson V Magnitude Uncertainty Band Select All Create Selection Filter Apply Reset Observer Validation Comp Star 1 Comp Star 2 Charts Comment Comments Transform Airm 2454768 98644 2454768 9867 2454768 98696 2454768 98722 2454768 98748 2454768
39. 4 953693 1245 1460 700000 1999 OCT 9 4 947370 2451460 700700 1999 OCT 9 4 947297 2451461 048600 1999 OCT 9 4 911200 Residuals tab contains list of the residuals observation minus model for each such pair of values from the polynomial fit 83 Plot Observations Means Model Magnitude Julian Day Calendar Date 2451460 076400 1999 8 0 211615 2481460 310000 1999 OCT amp 0 412368 2481460 400000 1999 OCT amp 0 021637 2481460 500000 1999 9 0 031952 2451460 533300 1999 OCT 9 0 364610 2481460 638900 1999 9 0 053693 2481460 700000 1999 OCT 9 0 047370 2481460 700700 1999 OCT 9 0 152703 This series also be viewed on the Plot pane by selecting the Residuals series in the Plot Control Dialog series visibility checkboxes Discrepant ean B Analysis Ee Discrepant MM 1 Excluded n _ Filtered 2 Excluded Fainter Than O Model Fainter Than Johnson visual Johnson V C Visual C Model Residuals Mean Series Update Show M Join means Error bars Cross hairs Days per Mean Series Bin In addition as shown above if the Residuals mean series source radio button is selected and Days per Mean Series bin set to 2 as shown the Plot Pane will look like this 84 Brightness magnitude 2 451 460 2 451 470 Light Curve for OMI CET 2 451 480 2 451 490 Johnson V Model Residuals Visual Means 2 451 500 2 151 510
40. 5731 775 2455755 71875 2455756 72917 2455757 69722 2455763 69097 2455765 76667 2455790 62153 2455813 58333 2455814 6 2455816 6375 2455818 65139 2455835 54444 2455836 51389 2455837 13542 2455838 12153 2455839 64861 2455840 60417 2455842 65417 2455850 69097 2455867 51736 2455871 51042 2455899 46736 2456110 71875 2456113 71667 2456114 72292 2456144 4937 2456144 5109 2456168 64444 2456200 39236 2456249 45972 2456385 87986 2456409 88194 2456492 67778 2456497 65 Pattern Search Julian Day Plot 3 Means Model Residuals A All Columns Calendar Date 2011 JUN 15 2011 JUN 19 2011 JUL 13 2011 JUL 14 2011 15 2011 21 2011 JUL 23 2011 AUG 17 2011 SEP 9 2011 SEP 10 2011 SEP 12 2011 SEP 14 2011 OCT 1 2011 OCT 2 2011 OCT 2 2011 OCT 3 2011 OCT 5 2011 6 2011 8 2011 16 2011 NOV 2 2011 NOV 6 2011 DEC 3 2012 JUL 2 2012 JUL 5 2012 JUL 6 2012 AUG 4 2012 AUG 5 2012 AUG 29 2012 SEP 29 2012 NOV 17 2013 APR 3 2013 APR 27 2013 JUL 19 2013 JUL 24 Magnitude 3 55 4 3 3 6 3 6 4 1 3 65 3 65 4 2 3 55 3 6 4 2 4 6 3 4 3 3 4 2 Uncertainty Band Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visual Visua
41. 6 25 1 m 6 504 e 6 754 4 2 A 7 00 4 7 251 J 7 501 7 75 E 8 00 e 8 25 4 8 501 Te 8 75 i 9 00 D fe 9 25 4 M 9 50 esp o es 9 75 1 10 00 4 E 10 25 Brightness magnitude 2 455 800 2 455 900 2 456 000 2 456 100 2 456 200 2 456 300 2 456 400 2 456 500 Time JD Johnson V Visual Means When in Phase Plot view mode the Mean Series Update section changes to refer to Phase steps per Mean Series bininstead of Days per Mean Series bin as shown below Mean Series Update Join means Phase Steps per Mean Series Bin 0 1 Apply M The resulting phase plot after clicking App1 y would look somewhat like this 36 Brightness magnitude 37 4 25 4 50 1 4 75 5 00 5 25 5 50 5 751 6 00 1 6 251 6 50 1 6 75 4 7 001 7 251 7 501 797 8 00 1 8 25 8 50 1 8 75 9 00 1 9 25 1 9 50 1 9 751 10 00 10 25 Sep 21 2013 database period 307 000000 epoch 2454597 000000 Phase Plot for R Car 03 92 01 00 01 Phase Johnson V Visual Means 0 2 0 3 0 9 1 0 Information Dialog Selecting File gt Info invokes the Information Dialog for the currently loaded dataset from the corresponding toolbar button le MW is loo New Star from AAVSO Database New Star from Fil
42. 610 330411 043 068868 674 904519 704 783115 731 004533 748 5646541 dialog via the New Phase Plot button 97 FP Po Po Ped Ped Ped WW Results Semi amplitude 643359 630088 615324 599119 581556 562755 542866 522074 5266076 503954 481008 458116 435548 413556 392362 372150 353062 331226 314019 298206 283790 270762 259106 248810 235383 230028 har Mean Magnitude 259818 42746 225057 206843 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 086105 069956 055284 042299 031166 021999 017918 011903 008035 006238 006388 008320 011840 009335 016003 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 188219 169330 150344 131454 140931 121856 103491 Effective number of data 140 769974 147 206801 153 607063 159 921423 166 112167 172 157607 178 055437 183 824585 189 921968 195 598931 201 328956 207 197608 213 294638 219 706159 220 505352 233 741655 241 428536 250 227332 258 0657815 207 230949 275 709610 283 797238 291 163513 297 484676 298 0360027 299 183124 RR 705 WWZ with Period Range Period vs Time maximal 2 i i Frequency vs Time maximal WWZ gt WWZ Visual Period vs Time maximal WWZ 320 310 300 290 280 2701 Period 260 250 240 4 230 220
43. 6171 cos 2 pi 0 278616 t 2455972 0 2 0 094525 sin 2 pi 0 278616 t 2455972 0 4 0 016110 cos 2 pi 0 417924 t 2455972 0 4 0 032878 sin 2 pi 0 417924 t 2455972 0 4 0 002538 cos 2 pi 0 557232 t 2455972 0 0 004635 sin 2 pi 0 557232 t 2455972 0 r Relative Amplitudes amp Phases by fundamental frequency 0 1393 eta Agl 2455695 8431 2456419 8604 2455972 4149 0 3524 4 9207 0 1227 3 0204 0 0177 5 5367 _ Show as cycles The model equations can be selected and copied with the mouse via manual selection or select all copy keyboard shortcuts and used as part of a script For example from the dialog above the R Fourier series equation 67 model lt function t 3 90735950 22001206 gos 2 13940220 T 2455908 07 01806042782 Site 3 946072260 C 2455966 0 0 09565610 G0812 Dr1 0 27892453 t 2455965 0 70 030794 74 sIn 2 D01 0 27092453 t 24559060 0 01725381 G05S12 pr 0 421530079 Eb 2455969 0 0 0299 199 510 2 5501 0 419830079 t9524599698 0 00455999 G09S 2 p1 0 55794905 E 24559658 0 0 007506789 sini2 pt 50 55704905 t 2455969 0 deo be used in conjunction with observations model data and the script available at the following location to plot the model equation https sourceforge net p vstar code HEAD tree trunk script plot_model R The Excel formula should be copied and pasted into a text editor and linefeeds
44. 80747 000880651 1010APY no 142 YohnsonV_ TRE Prevalidated 000880747 000BBQ6S1 1010 po jl43 2454882 92788 Johnson V TRE jPrevalidated 000880747 000880651 1010APY 1 434 00BBQ747 454882 91078 2009 FEB 20 The second method of creating an observation filter is via an Observation List selection filter The following observation list screenshot shows a pattern search see Observation List section being used to narrow down observations to just Johnson V this could also have been done via the Plot Control dialog and a selection via shift mouse click of multiple observations Clicking the Create Selection Filter button would yield the same filtered subset as above assuming the end date was appropriately selected Note that the Select 11 button is useful for selecting all observations currently in view in order to create a selection filter Selecting View gt Filter From Plot creates a filter from the observations currently visible in the raw mode plot See the Plug ins section for details of custom filters also available the View menu 50 Phase Plots The Period Analysis section details how VStar can be used to analyze a dataset for candidate periods the time taken for a star s variability to complete one full cycle If a star is assumed to have a particular period VStar can be asked to create a so called phase plot or folded light curve
45. 976 Residuals 976 Visual 976 Statistics Confidence Interval Mean error bars denote 95 Confidence Interval twice Standard Error Mean Source Series Residuals anova Residuals F value 0 600848 on 47 and 928 degrees of freedom p value 0 984954 Additional information about created models can be obtained via the Model Information dialog This can be invoked from the Analysis menu s Models item 86 Analysis Phase Plot Previous Phase Plots ane Models Polynomial of degree 7 ro bm Delete Show Model A model can be deleted via the Delete button The Select button is used to select the highlighted model in the list for viewing on the Plot Pane and the Model and Residuals lists Selecting the Show Model button invokes the following dialog Mode Information Fit metrics Extrema Excel R model lt function t 1 8096087163096137E 12 t 2451508 3662150577 7 7 301640176744918E 11 t 2451508 3662150577 6 9 235826034973304E 9 t 2451508 3662150577 5 3 8470150117008484E 7 t 2451508 3662150577 4 7 449697104296572E 6 t 2451508 3662150577 3 1 2757537923174344E 4 t 2451508 3662150577 2 0 006511013155660774 t 2451508 3662150577 1 3 3842332714031262 The Model Information dialog gives 97 Excel and R functions for the polynomial The Root Mean Square RMS value for the fit Akaike and Bayesian Information Criteria goodness of fit measu
46. AID To load a set of observations from the AID ensure you are connected to the Internet then select New Star from AAVSO Database from the File menu or click the button at the left of the toolbar J 1 e rir Vie New Star from AAVSO Database Eid New Star from File New Star from AAVSO Upload Format File mm Mew Star from APASS epoch photometry database _ New Star from BSM epoch photometry database New Star from Catalina Sky Survey File New Star from Cosine plus Noise New Star from Kepler FITS File v2 0 New Star from SuperWASP FITS File 18 Save Print Info Preferences 9 The following dialog will appear Select a Star Group Citizen Sky 10 Stars Star Eta Aquilae gt Other Star Minimum JD 2456147 5 Maximum JD 2456877 5 Additive Load Add to current Data Cancel If a name or AAVSO Unique ID AUID of a variable star is entered into the Other Star text box this will be used instead of the currently selected object in the Star drop down The Citizen Sky group see the Group drop down contains all stars from the 10 star tutorial Other groups
47. K gives the following 1f phase plot mode 15 selected 64 Phase Plot for eta Aug 16 2013 database period 7 17039849 epoch 2436084 656000 d i 3 2 4 3 3 oe 3 41 emamece e e oomoo 3 5 See gt is S7 3 61 uw ee eae 3 7 eec o ee comes o ee T 4 E 4 3 84 e os onm RE RAE o e omm omr a 00 997099 ODEN OEM Ooue M e 7 4 x e mee co mm d se 9 a qe o a rono ecou eme qe i 2 Brightness magnitude T UJ e Te A NJ INA 4 3 4 a ee e 4 4 4 PA ee E w UV m 4 54 E o eos ewm gt 4 61 o 4 71 1 0 0 9 0 8 0 7 0 6 0 5 0 4 0 3 0 2 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0 6 0 7 0 8 Phase Johnson V Model Visual or the following if VStar 16 raw data mode by means of contrast immediately revealing the allure of the combination of period analysis phase plots and models 65 Brightness m
48. Load plug ins Plug in location base URL http www aavso org sites default files vstar plugins vstar plugins 2 16 8 Delete Installed Plug ins Set Defaults Apply and it allows e plug in loading to be controlled 1 whether or not to load plug ins next time VStar is started e all locally installed plug ins to be deleted e the plug in location URL to be changed you would not want to modify this in normal use but it can be used to cause plug ins to be loaded from a different repository 110 Scripting VStar VStar permits some of its operations to be automated by writing a script Loading observations from a file Loading observations from the AAVSO International Database AID Switching between raw and phase plot mode Creating a phase plot given a period and epoch Saving a phase plot or light curve as a PNG image file Saving a light curve to a data file The VStar API documentation should be consulted for full function details http sourceforge net p vstar code HEA D tree trunk doc vstar_docs zip It is intended that more functionality will be made available via the scripting API Application Programming Interface future The following gives a summary of the available API functions Method and Description additiveLoadFromAID java lang String name double minJD double maxJD Load a dataset from the AAVSO international database adding it to the existing dataset additiveLoadFromFil
49. Pe 4 e wee mecs 9 0 eee E e eee o 9 1 1 EI mee e es 9 21 e se 9 31 2 447 500 2 447 750 2 448 000 2 448 250 2 448 500 2 448 750 2 449 000 2 449 250 2 449 500 20 The residuals for this model be viewed by opening the Plot Control dialog from the View 76 menu and setting it as shown including changing the Days Mean Series Bin and clicking Apply Mean Series Source m Means Data Analysis Discrepant Excluded Fainter Than Visual _ Filtered Discrepant Filtered J Excluded Model Model Residuals Visual 9 Residuals Select All Deselect All Mean Series Update Show Join means Error bars gt Days per Mean Series Bin Cross hairs 40 8 Apply Dismissing the dialog changes the plot to look like this 27 Light Curve for Cas d Brightness magnitude 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 2 447 500 2 447 750 2 448 000 2 448 250 2 448 500 2 448 750 2 449 000 2 449 250 2 449 500 Time JD gt Residuals Means The ANOVA value in the Info dialog File menu also suggests that there is unlikely to be any signal remaining to be found in the residuals 78 Information Summary for AA Cas Source Type AAVSO International Database Source Name AAVSO International Data
50. Plot Means Model Residuals Pattern Search L Show all data Comp Star 2 gt Columns Apply Reset Select All Create Selection Filter Charts Comment Comments Transform Airmass CMag KMag HQ Uncert MType Obs Type Group Affiliation ADS Refere Digitizer Credit Discrepant Name 1328bw no Standard Visual K TYC no Standard Visual 2 ETA AQ 1328bw no Standard Visual low ETA AQ 1328bw no Standard Visual m ETA AQ OTERO BK MOON TYC no Standard Visual 1328bw no Standard Visual 1328bw no Standard Visual _ 1328bw no Standard Visual ETA AQ onan BV Standard Visual ETA AQ MAN Standard Visual ETA AQ 10star B no Standard Visual 105 Standard Visual 1328bw Standard Visual ETA AQ The contents of the Observation List can be saved to a text file or printed via the File menu s Save andPrint items or the corresponding toolbar buttons New Star ium AAVSO a m New Star from File Save Print An example of the Save Dialog 15 shown below 28 Delimiter Name Date Modified Tab C Comma Space File Format All Files 121 4 EK v 1 New Folder Cancel In the example above when the Save button 15 clicked the current Observation List will
51. VStar User Manual Lead Developer David Benn dbenn computer org Table of Contents OCC T 3 027 AMON 6 ATI 6 10 PED 13 TRE POL eU ue adi tm Mapa OM eid Axim eee 14 23 Observation Details DIalog ae iio cinereus a enema 3l Plot Contor uere teda TRI VIVO 34 dared dci toda 38 ODSCEVOUOLDS tbe asec tat ed sum ade 42 PPS SPS istic se ease de 51 Porod Analys 58 shies fad 58 60 O E tee ean tio dt ee ee as 63 Credimo Poutter sentes 64 Other DCDFT options Period and Frequency Range seen 68 TT ING Sse et c neu tame 70 Dol Homil Ep tei E D 90 Lime Preguen y
52. a API in standard javadoc form 101 Preferences VStar allows some aspects of its functionality to be customized currently these are The color and size of observations a series as they appear on a plot e The precision of numbers 1 the number of decimal places e The objects that appear in the Load from AAVSO International Database AID dialog To open the Preferences dialog select the File gt Preferences menuitem or the corresponding toolbar button Edit View Analysis Tool New 5tar from AAVSO Database New Star from File 102 Preferences Series Size Numeric Precision Star Groups Series Description Blue Color HSE RGB Recent L BEET L L BERANT FETTET BERANT Lae ae BHL Eee Lae VE BERANT BERANT LL hae ae Preview m B Sample Text Sample Text Sample Text Sample Text Set Default Colors Apply O Cancel j The first tabbed pane shown above controls the color of a series observation as it appears on a plot The series is selected from a list and the color selected Clicking the Apply or OK buttons confirms the color change Like all preference settings this change
53. a tool called Zapper which can be used to flag discrepent data for further investigation http www aavso org zapper Epoch In a phase plot the initial time selected to begin the cycle e g the time of the first observation or the time of minimum Error Bar On a graph lines extending above and below and or to the right and left of a data point that signify uncertainty in the 123 measurement usually to 95 confidence level In VStar only error bars in magnitude are included since uncertainty in times are not recorded in AAVSO data A null observation of a variable star that was too faint for the instrument observer Since the star was not actually Fainter Than seen imaged it can only be said that at that time it was fainter than some limiting magnitude FITS Flexible Image Transport System is a digital file format commonly used in astronomy and other sciences for the storage transmission and processing of images Fourier Analysis A power spectrum see below that is based on sinusoids Harmonics The fundamental period divided by an integer i e half the period one third the period recalculation of the Julian date to take into account the Heliocentric Julian Day earth s distance from the sun i e the Julian Date if the star were measured from the center of the sun See ttp www physics sfasu edu astro javascript hjd html h HJD oee Heliocentric Julian Day See Julian D
54. agnitude 66 J E4 3 2 1 2 21 3 41 3 34 UJ UJ 1 UJ wW gt A 4 31 4 4 4 51 4 6 1 4 71 Light Curve for eta se iis 4472 ee eee pans 7 age ooo ee ee ae Ji T etie Sod states TET Kurs at e e 27 AE 2 2 P e Sici s e FEN it Za 282 UTE ACC e pi 04 SE su cob PETS e t E et amp Ps e 2 Har VN y Jor 4 ee 9 5 2 3 ete a H tofoe S ne eai ier ee a me 5 o L ad ven ie ss ce floss n ge ET 24 HIT EE 3 2 455 700 2 455 800 2 455 900 2 456 000 2 456 100 2 456 200 2 456 300 2 456 400 20 Johnson V Model Visual Previous models be revisited via the models dialog invoked by Analysis gt Models BONG Models Fit from periods 7 17039849 Delete Show Model select Models can be deleted or selected for plotting or inspection Clicking the Show 1 button opens a dialog that shows the selected model function in different forms Model Information Function Excel model function t 3 907300 0 282271 cos 2 pi 0 139308 t 2455972 0 0 097108 sin 2 pi 0 139308 t 2455972 0 4 0 04
55. al SIS atte 91 dise ccm 100 PHS LCL SING CS st 102 SCT 111 Star names Use NOX 116 T itC OQ C HOD eco pe str tto ee 116 Greek Letter Names Bayer Designations 116 Argelander s System for Naming Variable 51 5 2 2 2 49022 0 0 1904 lt 00000 000000000 116 Other Namie C 8 117 NN TEN PU 122 References and Useful ooo tete tote et e a rum dte mE i ane mM 127 General Information on VStar and Variable Star 1 127 sei Links dor NO duet uctus o ubi ee Eon espe 128 Useful Links for Period and Time Series Analysis TS and 2 24200 20 128 Usel Polynomial a oso neto 128 Useful Links for Regular Expressions for Observation List Pattern Search 129 Turthiet cadiN oc 130 License s sooo e e e omae Nan rM 132 ior otn
56. an be found at this url http www theastronomer org variables html TKx TK stands for Kryachko The TK numbers of new variables continue a numbering system first introduced in Kryachko and Solovyov 1996 The authors invented this acronym VSX Jhhmmss s ddmmss This is the system used by the International Variable Star Index VSX maintained by the AAVSO These J2000 coordinate designations are applied to newly 120 cataloged objects VSX http www aavso org vsx XTE Jhhmm dd These are objects detected by the Rossi X Ray Timing Explorer Mission The primary objective of the mission 1s the study of stellar and galactic systems containing compact objects These systems include white dwarfs neutron stars and possibly black holes http www nasa gov centers goddard missions rxte html 121 Glossary AAVSO International Database collection of tens of millions of variable star observations spanning over a century Maintained by the AAVSO it is the largest digital database of variable stars in the world http www aavso org aavso international database 5 Unique ID A unique reference name for a star using the format 000 XXX 000 where the O s are numbers 0 9 and the X s are letters AIC See Akaike Information Criteria See AAVSO International Database Akaike Information Criteria A measure of how well a statistical model fits a given set of data balancing how complicated
57. and are found at http www aavso org solar http www aavso org webobs Southern Gems part of the Citizen Sky Project http www aavso org citizensky ten naked eye southern hemisphere variable stars http www citizensky org teams southern cems important southern gems resources 127 Useful Links for ANOVA StatSoft Introduction to ANOVA MANOVA An overview of ANOVA techniques from the publisher of a statistics textbook The page links to a great deal of other information on statistical analysis http www statsoft com textbook anova manova button 1 Wikipedia One way ANOVA analysis of variance Standard Wikipedia entry summarizing the basics of the ANOVA technique http en wikipedia org wiki One How to Calculate and Understand Analysis of Variance ANOVA F Test https explorable com anova video Useful Links for Period and Time Series Analysis TS and WWZ AAVSO Software Directory A collection of software that was developed with variable star observations and data analysis in mind http www aavso org software directory 5 Fortran direct link for downloading the time series statistical program http www aavso org sites default files software ts tar gz WWZ Fortran A direct link for downloading a Fortran version of WWZ http www aavso org sites default files software wwz tar gz Useful Links for Polynomial Fit Lutus P Interactive Polynomial Regression Data Fit An i
58. and range of many are still undetermined The project website url is http www aerith net misao NSV xxxxx These are stars in the Catalog of New and Suspected Variable Stars produced as a companion to the Moscow General Catalog of Variable Stars GCVS by B V Kukarkin et al All stars in the NSV have reported but unconfirmed variability in particular lacking complete light curves Some NSV stars will eventually prove truly variable others will be spurious Information about this and the General Catalog of Variable Stars can be found at http Www sai msu su groups cluster gcvs gcvs intro htm NSVS Jxxxxxx xxxxxx Variable stars discovered as a result of the Northern Sky Variability Survey NSVS http skydot lanl gov nsvs nsvs php OGLE Jxxxxxx xx xxxxxx x The Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment is a Polish astronomical project that 15 chiefly concerned with discovering dark matter using the microlensing technique As a byproduct of the constant monitoring of hundreds of millions of stars one of the largest catalogs of variable stars was constructed and the first exoplanets discovered using the microlensing technique were detected http ogle astrouw edu pl OGLE LMC RCBxx stars discovered by OGLE OGLE RRLYR xxxxx RR Lyrae stars discovered by OGLE PG hhmm DDd Palomar Green Survey conducted to search for blue objects covering 10714 square degrees from 266 fields taken on the Palomar 18 inch Schmidt
59. ange WWZ with Frequency Range WWZ with Period Range The toolbar button corresponds to the WWZ with Period Range item of the Analysis menu Applying WWZ to the dataset requires selecting the series to be analyzed then the following parameters 93 Minimum frequency or period Maximum frequency or period Frequency or period step this 15 the resolution the frequency domain Decay this is the wavelet window smaller values yield better resolution of variation J Dinar m e Time divisions this gives the time resolution defined as time divisions this is revealed by the extent of vertical banding in the contour plot as we see in the first figure of this section For T UMi selecting Analysis gt WWZ with Period Range selecting the Visual series and entering values of 100 days min period 500 days max period 1 day period resolution 0 001 decay and 200 time divisions for the above parameters gives a plot of period vs time Select a Series WWZ Param Data 4 r Analysis Minimum Period Discrepant Filtered 100 Excluded Means Maximum Period Fainter Than Mode 500 fe Visual Residuals Period Step 1 0 0 001 Time Divisions 200 94 WWZ Visual Period vs Time maximal WWZ 320 310 300 290 280 270 Period 260 250 240 230 220 210 2 420 000 2 425 000 2 430 000 2 435 000 2 440 000
60. arried out e the observation can be excluded via Edit gt Exclude Selection the details of the observation can be viewed via the Observation Details Dialog or Observation List see the corresponding sections for more detail e attributes of the selected observation can be made available for observation filtering see the Filtering Observations section e the Plot Pane can be zoomed or panned these operations are covered next On the W UMa plot above it would be useful to be able to see more detail on a smaller time scale This is possible in a number of ways e Drawing a bounding box with the mouse click and drag around an area of the plot To zoom out again a click drag left mouse gesture 15 used e Selecting a point on the plot then using the zoom buttons in the toolbar or the View menu s Zoom Inand Zoom Out items 16 Seo Analysis Raw Data Phase Plot Observation Details Plot Control Zoom Out e Use the zoom items of the context menu e g by right clicking on Windows ctrl click on Mac OS X Domain Axis 1 Auto Range b Range Axis Consider the following W UMa light curve MI Properties Copy Save as Print 1 Both Axes Zoom Out Light Curve for W UMA 7 24 7 34 7 44 7 51 E 7 6 7 7 9 7 81 c E 68 7 9 Z 2 8 0 4 3 5 81 p 4 i o 8 2 2
61. ase mode M The tabs labeled Plot Observations Means Model and Residuals show the same data in different forms or reveal different facets of the underlying data In both raw and phase mode the Plot pane contains a multi series plot of the loaded dataset along with any synthetic series such as means model residuals or filtered observations Various attributes of the plot can be customized See the Plot Pane section for more detail The Observations pane reflects the Plot pane in tabular form It also provides the ability to search the data and create filtered subsets from search results or a manual selection of observations See the Observation List section for more detail The remaining 3 panes Means Model and Residuals show synthetic data in simple tabular form The remainder of this document describes different aspects of VStar s functionality To learn more about the context which VStar was developed see Benn 2012 Observation Sources Observations can be loaded into VStar from a variety of sources Out of the box observations can be loaded from the AAVSO International Database AID or files conforming to one of two formats described the Load from File section Observations from other sources e g other AAVSO sources Kepler SuperWASP ASAS can be loaded via plug ins found in AAVSO Plug in Library http www aavso org vstar plugin library Load from
62. ay U Johnson Band A standard set of photometric filters See http www company7 com library optec filter monograph pdf Julian Day A continuous account of the days and fractions of a day from noon Universal Time on January 1 4713 BCE See http aa usno navy mil data docs JulianDate php Kepler An exoplanet seeking space telescope that records variations in brightness for approximately 150 000 stars in a single field of view near the Cygnus Lyra border In addition to discovering exoplanets via the transit method it also captures observations of numerous variable stars Light Curve A plot of variations in magnitude over time Mean Series Calculating the mean of observations for equal sized bins of Julian Dates or phase steps to construct a mean light curve Observer Code A unique 3 or 4 letter code assigned to each observer by the AAVSO Individual observations are tagged by the observer code in the database NO 4 Period The time between two repetitions of a cycle often peak to peak Phase Plot A plot in which the periodic data is folded such that if the correct period is selected each individual instance of the cycle aligns with the others Polynomial model Representing data as a sum of terms of the form Bit where polynomial fit i 0 1 2 See Foster 2010 Power Spectrum Also known as periodogram plot of frequency versus power that is used when a trial frequency is presume
63. base loaded Tue Sep 10 08 48 53 CST 2013 AUID 000 BBC 733 Variable Type LB Spectral Type Melll RA 1950 1h 16m 17 8900005 Dec 1950 56d 4m 2 7000005 Series Loaded Observations 874 Fainter Than 1 Model 873 Residuals 873 Visual 873 Statistics Confidence Interval Mean error bars denote 95 Confidence Interval twice Standard Error Mean Source Series Residuals anova Residuals F value 0 99725166 on 46 and 826 degrees of freedom p value 0 47960852 We can say this since the p value of 0 48 suggests that what is observed in the residuals is likely to be due to noise rather than the presence of a non trivial signal For another example of using CLEANest in VStar see the following http dbenn wordpress com 2011 07 13 bz uma model and cleanest 79 Polynomial Fit Just as a mean curve can be thought of as a model of a dataset that has a smoothing effect a polynomial model can also be used as a smoothing mechanism to capture key aspects of a dataset without all the rough edges Suppose you want to determine the time of maximum for the following Mira maximum light curve segment Light Curve for OMI CET 2 91 3 0 ee ae 3 11 99099999 ee ee 3 2 4 ee oo eee ee mee 3 34 Sues ee om 00079 3 4 MO ew
64. be saved to a file called omiCetLC tsv Files can be saved as rows of tab comma or space separated values The first two are preferable over the latter since spaces some fields lead to ambiguity if loading back into VStar or other software 1s required From experience tabs are less frequent compared to commas in fields such as comments as found in AAVSO download files so tab separation 1s a good choice The Print Dialog looks like this on a Mac OS X machine Page Setup Settings Page Attributes Hd Format For HL 2040 Hd Brother HL 2040 series CUPS Paper Size A4 HH Orientation Scale Cr GOD 29 30 Observation Details Dialog The details of an individual observation can be viewed by selecting an observation the Plot pane such that the cross hair is upon it e g Light Curve for R Car Selecting a row in the observation list 1s equivalent to this e g Show all data Pattern Search Julian Day Plot Columns tas X 3 Julian Day 2456422 291670 2456422 291670 2456422 291670 2456422 333330 2456423 060420 2456423 062860 2455423 434720 Calendar Date 2013 MAY 9 2013 MAY 9 2013 MAY 9 2013 MAY 9 2013 MAY 10 Magnitude 5 700000 5 900000 5 800000 5 800000 5 900000 Uncertainty Band 0 000000 0 000000 0 000000 0 000000 0 000000 Visual Visual Visual Visual Observer GEZA it
65. can be created via the Preferences dialog Ifthe Add to current Checkbox 15 selected observations loaded from AID will be added to those already loaded into VStar See the Additive Loads section below for further details Either a Julian Date range must be specified or all data requested This determines the time range over which data should be loaded If the requested object does not exist or there is no data for the object in AID or for the specified date range a message box will appear to that effect otherwise the available data will be loaded the light curve plot observation list and mean series created If visual or V band data exists corresponding observations will be initially visible this can subsequently be changed via the Plot Control Dialog see View menu Otherwise the band with the most observations will be displayed initially Load from File To load observations from an AAVSO download format file or simple file select the New Star from File menuitem from the File menu or click the second to left most button in the toolbar Edit View Analysis Tool Help New Star from AAVSO Database New Star from File Files must conform to one of two formats AAVSO download format o http www aavso org data download o http www aavso org format data file e Simple format consisting of lines of the form Julian Date Magnitude Uncertainty Observer Code Validation Flag or simply Julian Date
66. ctral type and discoverer VStar allows data to be viewed and filtered via plots or tables The details of each observation can be viewed individually or in tabular form Data and plots can be saved or printed A mean plot can counteract the effect of noise in data and provide an indication of the extent of signal present Phase plots can be created assuming a certain period revealing the shape of a star s light curve in a way that a raw data plot may not Period analysis can be applied to reveal one or more periods in the data Models can be created to represent the essence of a light curve and to subtract one or more periods from the data the residual data being amenable to further analysis Time frequency analysis permits changes in period over time to be discovered VStar is written in the Java programming language requiring at least version 1 6 to run on Windows Mac OS X Linux and OpenSolaris New functionality can be added via plug ins from a plug in library or can be written by anyone with knowledge of Java or other languages that target the Java Virtual Machine The following figure shows the main window s toolbar and tabs Mx SPAY Model Residuals Light Curve for LX CYG Observations Means The two toolbar buttons below switch between raw data mode or raw mode or light curve mode and phase plot mode or ph
67. d in order to find periodicity in the data Here power is a measure of the Statistical significance of the fit of the trial frequency to the actual data Pre whitening In order to examine residuals in the data set the strongest signal highest peak is removed This permits additional periods to be searched for Regular Expressions In computer programming a regular expression is a special text string used to describe a search pattern See http www regular expressions info Residuals The difference between the raw data and the model of the data Residuals can sometimes contain valuable information such as the existence of a second periodicity Root Mean Square In statistics this is the square root of the mean of a sum of a squared values i e the square root of the mean of x4 x X Standard Error A measure of how precise an average value of data is expected to be SuperWASP A UK based exoplanet detection consortium See http www superwasp org Variable Star Index An online clearinghouse for timely information on variable stars including suspected suspected See http www aavso org vsx VSX See Variable Star Index Weighted Wavelet Z An algorithm designed for analyzing variable star data Transform especially cases where there are period changes and or transient phenomena e g mode switching See Foster 1996 125 WWZ see Weighted Wavelet Z Transform 126 References a
68. der In any mode raw or phase plot the default 1s for observations to be sorted by Julian Date The set of columns that appear in the observation list varies with the observation source e g 23 AID files of particular type Something not obvious at first glance is that the observation list mirrors the plot In other words if a particular band series is visible on the plot it will also be visible in the observation list It 1s possible to override this by selecting the Show all data checkbox Note this will not affect the plot The same 15 true for Pattern Search feature Typing a regular expression into the text box to the left of the Apply button followed by clicking that button will e Look for a match across values in all columns e Filter the list based upon the match If no match is found no observations will be displayed Clicking the Reset button will restore the normal observation list Note that when Show all data 15 selected the Search pane is disabled The following shows a pattern search for the word resulting in a listing that consists only of observations in which the word moon appears somewhere specifically in the Comments column In this example the comments column needs to be expanded to see some occurrences of the pattern e g those near the middle beginning with Clear Wa when expanded show Clear Waxing moon 24 Show all data Julian Day 2455727 78056 245
69. described for Standard Scan above CLEANest The TS documentation cited above goes on to make the following comment When you run a Fourier analysis of the data it is possible that the peak signal or signals you detect may not be the precise frequency actually detected in the data set because the sampled frequencies tested might be offset slightly from the true signals Like TS VStar 16 capable of refining one or more periods simultaneously via the CLEANest Foster 1995 algorithm Grant Foster s 1995 CLEANest Fourier Spectrum paper Foster 1995 gives a number of examples of applying the CLEANest algorithm to datasets artificial and real Two of these use AAVSO visual magnitude estimates S Ori and AA Cas What follows will show VStar s CLEANest implementation applied to AA Cas Foster 1995 uses an AA Cas dataset in the JD range 2447500 to 2449500 Here 1s that dataset loaded from the AAVSO International Database AID Light Curve for AA Cas 7 61 7 8 E 7 9 8 0 8 1 ee 8 2 gt e e on P usi 5 8 4 e oo me ee E um ius M T PH NS 5 8 6 9000 apace e e one o omr 237 e an moo me set mee RE E 8 8 o cee ecm ee cam ame eem ce 8 9
70. e New Star from AAVSO Upload Format File New Star from APASS epoch photometry d New Star from ASAS File New Star from BSM epoch photometry dat New Star from Catalina Sky Survey File New Star from Cosine plus Noise New Star from Kepler FITS File v2 0 New Star from SuperWASP FITS File Save Print Here is an example Information Dialog for 2 years of R Car data 38 Information Summary for R Car Source Type AAVSO International Database Source Name AAVSO International Database loaded Sat Jul 20 14 33 15 CST 2013 AUID 000 500 Period 307 0 days Epoch 2454597 0 Variable Type M Spectral Type 4 8 RA 1950 9h 30m 58 8800005 Dec 1950 62d 34m 0 6000005 Series Loaded Observations 476 Cousins I 4 Cousins R 4 Discrepant 4 Fainter Than 4 MIR 1 6micron 1 J NIR 1 2micron 1 Johnson B 17 Johnson V 17 Tri Color Blue 5 Tri Color Green 6 Unfiltered with V Zeropoint 5 Visual 408 Statistics Confidence Interval Mean error bars denote 95 Confidence Interval twice Standard Error Mean Source Series Visual anova Visual F value 274 29514233 on 30 and 377 degrees of freedom p value 0 000001 The dialog is divided into Summary Series and Statistics sections The Summary section includes information about the source of the dataset AAVSO Unique ID AUID and if known period epoch variable type spectral type and coordinates F
71. e ww e o 4 51 ai J E So mum a 4 61 ee j 4 7 1 i 1 0 0 9 0 8 0 7 0 6 0 5 0 4 0 3 0 2 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0 6 0 7 0 8 0 9 1 0 Phase Johnson V Visual The Analysis menu s Previous Phase Plots item yields a dialog that permits previously created phase plots to be selected or deleted e g ae Phase Plots Iperiod 1 664100 epoch 2436084 65600000 series Vis V period 7 18260239 epoch 2436084 65600000 series Vis V period 7 50000000 epoch 2436084 65600000 series Vis V Delete The first two items in the View menu allow you to switch between phase plot and raw view 55 modes There are corresponding toolbar buttons View Analysis Raw Data v Phase Plot If no phase plot exists the first time Phase Plot view mode is selected the phase plot parameter dialog will be invoked Here is another example that demonstrates the visualization power of a phase plot given the right period The following shows a V0838 Cyg dataset loaded via the Kepler observation source plugin Light Curve for kplr010789273 2012277125453 llc fits 3 05 p eode o eb ARAM eu Peres Gana 09 0920 NORE Ie rin inh Fly eee AA X 009009007 3 10 1 400044 2a5
72. e Delete Delete All scrolling through the list of plug in descriptions and selecting each one will indicate whether a plug in can be installed or updated If neither Install nor the Update button is enabled then the plug in is up to date on your local machine with respect to the AAVSO plug in archive A plug in can be deleted from your system via the Delete button and the Delete A11 button allows all locally installed plug ins to be deleted Some plug ins require AAVSO membership status to run e g APASS BSM so these will only be listed if the user is a member 100 After installing updating or deleting a plug in dismiss the dialog then close restart VStar to see the changes The menu in which a plug in will appear in VStar depends upon its type Observation source plug ins appear in the File menu Custom filter plug ins appear in the View menu s Custom Filters sub menu Model creation and period analysis plug ins appear in the Analysis menu Observation and general tools appear the Tool menu See the Preferences section for information about plug in preferences Follow these links to learn about how to develop plug ins for VStar e https sourceforge net p vstar code HEAD tree trunk plugin doc vstar_plugin_dev pdf e https sourceforge net p vstar code HEAD tree trunk doc vstar_docs zip The first 1s a document titled Developing VStar Plug ins The second 1s a zip file containing the latest VStar Jav
73. e WWZ statistic the strength of a periodicity at a particular time This example is discussed in Foster 2010 340 330 320 310 300 290 280 270 260 250 240 230 220 210 200 Period 2 420 000 2 425 000 2 430 000 2 435 000 2 440 000 2 445 000 2 450 000 2 4550 This section explores WWZ via T T UMi dataset below taken from the AAVSO International Database AID spans the JD range 2 420 000 to 2 455 000 Even a visual inspection suggests amplitude and possible period 91 Light Curve for 284 change 98900039 oo e 590000000000 oooga SO 2 05 P a g gel ee e 4 8 o 60 666 86 o 50 154 7 0 900 obee a E page e E b CITILA aln aun a e on aa 214 ee e Se a at Geel et oe ee ee ee 90090 e806 ge opoo ee EL 00002000 thoe o 24 a 3 2 B ee 9 eese s 50 00 u B ucc Rc 25 e 2902 894 ooo o Gee 3 38 H i 9099 9 4 99 H 000000000 ef Sp ot e g ese 00000000 ee oo ge o egg o sess e E 8 00 Gee s o e 3 eee eo ee hs poet i5 ec sees 9 o spe 4
74. e java lang String path Load a dataset from the specified path adding it to the existing dataset additiveLoadFromFile java lang String pluginName java lang String path Load a dataset from the specified path adding it to the existing dataset using the possibly partial plug in name to identify the observation source plug in to use additiveLoadFromURL java lang String pluginName java lang String url Load a dataset from the specified URL adding it to the existing dataset using the possibly partial plug in name to identify the observation source plug in to use exit Exit VStar getError Return the last error 111 getSeries Returns comma separated string of series names for the current dataset including bands synthetic series such as means model residuals getWarning Return the last warning lightCurveMode Switch to phase raw light curve mode loadFromAID java lang String name double minJD double maxJD Load a dataset from the AAVSO international database loadFromFile java lang String path Load a dataset from the specified path loadFromFile java lang String pluginName java lang String path Load a dataset from the specified path using the possibly partial plug in name to identify the observation source plug in to use loadFromURL java lang String pluginName java lang String url Load a dataset from the specified URL using the possibly partial plug in name to identify the
75. eativecommons org licenses by 3 0 e http creativecommons org licenses by 3 0 legalcode 132 Revision History Date Primary Authors Comments Fri 27 Sep 2013 David Benn Kristine Larsen Initial document release for VStar 2 15 3 Sun 29 Sep 2013 David Benn Resized context diagram Added AAVSO logo to title page Removed 2 15 3 from title page Sat 15 Mar 2014 David Benn Added note about Excel model equation format Fri 9 May 2014 David Benn Added Plugin Manager material to Plug ins section Sun 22 Jun 2014 David Benn Mike Simonsen Corrections and improvements from VStar CHOICE course May 2014 course participants Paul York and Brad Walter Star naming section by Mike Simonsen Thur 17 Jul 2014 David Benn Added URL request and non AID load HJD conversion information to observation sources section Changed Model Information dialog figures to show tabs Fri 8 Aug 2014 David Benn Additive load changes for 2 16 3 Wed 24 Sep 2014 David Benn Glossary updates Thu 18 Dec 2014 David Benn Scripting section update Fri 3 Jul 2015 David Benn Updates for 2 16 8 Tue 11 Aug 2015 David Benn Added information about use of commas to observation source section 133
76. ecessary for the HJD conversion is taken from VSX In other cases dialogs permit the entry of the RA and Dec for non AID loads such as this one both RA and Dec currently assume B1950 0 rather than J2000 0 epoch Dec B1950 0 Degrees 62 Minutes 34 Seconds 0 6 Cancel Further AAVSO Upload Format files used for the online WebObs tool see AAVSO Plug in Library and ASAS are currently the only supported observation source that can contain explicit HJD observations so the data must be loaded from AID and then from one of these file types for HJD conversion to occur If HJD conversion takes place for a given additive load a dialog will inform the user of this 13 The Plot Pane The Plot Pane provides a view of the currently loaded dataset as a scatterplot of observations graphing brightness vs time or phase This is referred to as a light curve Here 1 a light curve for LX Cyg Light Curve for LX CYG 9 00 9 25 9 50 9 75 10 00 10 25 10 50 m 10 75 11 00 z 11 25 11 50 11 75 12 00 4 12 25 12 50 12 75 13 00 13 25 13 50 13 75 14 00 14 25 14 50 d Hive S 9 1 n TLE LL a PT sesalie t NIS 18 t AP os Ba fal 2 TE TTILE 192585 75 ty Pow 8 og n a 2 448 000 2 449 000 2 450 000 2 451 000 2 452 000 2 453 000 20
77. er Comment B BU B B B BU BU BU Comments moon close light moon close moon very full moon moon smog moon smog moon haze close to m moon near full moon moon Clear Wa moon near Clear Wa Clear Wa moon clos moon moon close moon moon moon city moon close moon close moon close moon Observati moon close Full moon moon close moon moon dawn moon moon Rather than asking VStar to match across all columns a particular column can be targeted as in the following example that looks for observations whose Calendar Date column matches 2011 OCT 31 or 2013 APR 23 via the pattern 2011 OCT 312013 APR 23 where the vertical bar character means or alternatively 25 Plot Observations Means Model Residuals Pattern Search Show all data Julian Day Gi All Columns 2011 OCT 3112013 APR 23 Reset Select Create Selection Filter Julian Day Calendar Date Magnitude Uncertainty Band Observer Validation Comp Star 1 Comp Star 2 Charts Comment Comments Transfor 2455865 50726 2011 OCT 31 4 529 0 015 JohnsonB 5 Prevalidated ENSEMBLE 6054AK no 2455865 51041 2011 OCT 31 3 742 0 012 Johnson V SAH Prevalidated ENSEMBLE 6054AK no 2455865 51353 2011 OCT 31 3 124 0 01 Cousins R SAH Prevalidated ENSEMBLE 6054 2455865 51664 2011 31 2 915 0 016 Cou
78. g at the eta Agl example above in more detail selecting DCDFT Standard Scan yields the series selection dialog since period search is only applied to a single series 60 Cousins KC A Discrepant C Excluded Fainter Than Johnson B Johnson Tri Color Green Unknown 9 visual Cancel Analysis O Filtered Means Model rh J Residuals Here the Visual series is selected Clicking the OK button leads after a short time to the result dialog 61 Period Analysis DC DFT for eta Top Hits Data Amplitude vs Frequency Period Analysis DC DFT for eta Aql series Visual 0 00 0 05 0 10 0 15 0 20 0 25 0 30 0 35 0 40 0 45 0 50 0 55 0 60 Frequency B Power vs Frequency Power vs Frequency 1 Logarithmic Show top hits m WEW rnase FIOT Find Harmonics Dismiss By default Power vs Frequency plot sometimes called the power spectrum is shown Notice that Show top hits 15 checked here again by default The small brightly colored squares correspond to top hits those frequencies periods at the peaks of the plot those with highest power value These are the best candidates for the actual frequency period As with all plots in VStar zooming in to a DCDFT plot can be done by click dragging a rectangular area of the plot or using the context menu e g via right click in Window
79. h the WWZ statistic was maximal 96 A phase plot be created from a selected result table row or plot datapoint in the WWZ results Time 2420000 000000 2420100 000000 2420200 000000 2420300 000000 2420400 000000 2420500 000000 2420600 000000 2420700 000000 2420800 000000 2420900 000000 2421000 000000 2421100 000000 2421200 000000 2421300 000000 2421400 000000 2421500 000000 2421600 000000 2421700 000000 2421800 000000 2421900 000000 2422000 000000 2422100 000000 2422200 000000 2422300 000000 2422400 000000 2422500 000000 422 Frequency 0 003195 0 003195 0 003195 0 003195 0 003195 0 003195 0 003195 0 003195 0 003185 0 003185 0 003185 0 003185 0 003185 0 003185 0 003185 0 003185 0 003185 0 003175 0 003175 0 003175 0 003175 0 003175 0 003175 0 003175 0 003175 0 003175 n nn Period 313 000000 313 000000 313 000000 313 000000 313 000000 313 000000 313 000000 313 000000 314 000000 314 000000 314 000000 314 000000 314 000000 314 000000 314 000000 314 000000 314 000000 315 000000 315 000000 315 000000 315 000000 315 000000 315 000000 315 000000 315 000000 315 000000 nnonnnn Period vs Time vs WWZ 3D maximal WWZ WWZ 254 772811 200 853592 278 707516 290 451820 301 872704 313 033314 323 979413 334 802121 346 875131 360 068145 374 041085 389 0464772 405 345642 423 209725 442 871871 464 534555 488 325850 515 761819 545 949042 577 679847
80. idt plates centered primarily on the galactic plane In all seven papers entitled A finding list of faint UV bright stars 1n the galactic plane were published LD xxx Variables discovered by Lennart Dahlmark a Swedish retiree living in southern France are given this prefix Dahlmark has been conducting a photographic search for new variable stars discovering several hundred to date 118 Markarian xxxx The widely used abbreviation for Markarian objects is Mrk These are active galaxies from lists published by the Soviet Armenian astrophysicist B E Markarian Markarian looked for galaxies that emit unusually strong UV radiation which comes from either pervasive star formation HII regions or from active nuclei In 1966 Markarian published Galaxies With UV Continua Around that time he started the First Byurakan Spectral Sky Survey FBS which is now completed In 1975 Markarian initiated a Second Byurkan Survey SBS His collaborators continued the SBS after his death MASTER OT Jxxxxxx xx xxxxxx x Supernovae cataclysmic variables and other variable objects discovered by the MASTER Mobile Astronomical System of TElescope Robots project http observ pereplet ru MisVxxxx The stars are named MisV after MISAO Project Variable stars The MISAO Project makes use of images taken from all over the world searching for and tracking astronomically remarkable objects Few of these stars have light curves and the type
81. in which all observations are plotted into a window of a particular size the period in days To accomplish this each observation s time 15 converted to a phase according to the following equation epoch where is the phase 115 the observation time epoch 15 some initial time and P is the assumed period The epoch can be one of a number of values from the current dataset such as the time of the first observation the time closest to the mid point the mean of the first and last time a time of minimum or maximum The most appropriate epoch to use may depend upon the binary type If one is not available from VSX for the star and only for an AID loaded dataset the default epoch computed by VStar is the mean of the first and last time the current dataset Assume the following eta Aquilae dataset is loaded 51 Brightness magnitude 4 31 4 41 4 51 4 6 4 7 1 Light Curve for eta api 2 tam E d UI n ra ee ee pete ve 38 os ee um Her NN eee gt 2422221 i Te 42 4 ee e000 E E s ee eee ee e 620 o o WE op eae ee eee o 2 455 700 2 455 800 2 455 900 2 456 000 2
82. inty Band Record 0 853557 2456107 159943 2012 JUN 28 3 043647 0 000119 Kepler 0 896101 245656107 180377 2012 JUN 28 3 129627 0 000129 Kepler 0 938645 2456107 200811 2012 JUN 28 3 264647 0 000147 Kepler 0 981189 2456107 221245 2012 JUN 28 3 389898 0 000166 Kepler By default observation rows are still sorted by JD but clicking the Phase column will order by phase The Period Analysis section shows how to create a phase plot from the result dialog of a period search See also the Further Reading section 57 Period Analysis Introduction The purpose of period analysis 1 as the term suggests to identify candidate periods for variable star from the available data There are a number of ways to do this Sometimes one can simply inspect the light curve to find the time taken for the brightness change to go through one full cycle For less obvious cases an algorithm such as AoV PDM or Fourier analysis can be used to search for candidate periods VStar implements the Date Compensated Discrete Fourier Transform DCDFT algorithm Ferraz Mello 1981 yielding a power spectrum and a table of top hits given a specified series frequency or period range and resolution The date compensated part of the name indicates that gaps in the data common for variable star observations are compensated for by the algorithm From within the DCDFT result window a phase plot can be created see Phase Plots section for more information
83. is an ongoing survey monitoring millions of stars down to magnitude 14 The survey cameras are located at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile so it covers the southern sky from the pole to 117 about 28 degrees declination http www astrouw edu pl asas ASASSN XXaa Supernovae and cataclysmic variables discovered by the All Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae a survey running instruments in Hawaii and Chile Some galactic novae have been discovered and are given the ASASN CSS yymmdd hhmmss ddmmss The prefix stands for Catalina Sky Survey followed by the date in yymmdd form then the coordinates an unscientific unsatisfactory format These are assigned to transient events or cataclysmic variables mostly http www lpl arizona edu css CSS Variables from the Catalina Surveys Periodic Variable Star Catalog an on line catalog containing periods amplitudes and classifications for 61 000 periodic variables http arxiv org pdf 1405 4290 pdf EUVE Jhhmm ddmm These are objects detected by NASA s Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer a satellite dedicated to studying objects in far ultraviolet wavelengths The first part of the mission was dedicated to an all sky survey using the imaging instruments that cataloged 801 objects Phase two involved pointed observations mainly with the spectroscopic instruments One of the highlights of the mission was the detection of Quasi Periodic Osci
84. ith JDs greater than or equal to the selected observation are shown as being in the Filtered series see legend at bottom of plot regardless of series This filter could be refined to restrict the JD range and series included The following example creates a filtered subset of observations where the JD is greater than or equal to 2454880 and the JD is less than or equal to 2454930 and the band is Johnson V Operators differ with field type For numeric fields such as JD magnitude and error the usual relational operators are provided equal not equal less than greater than less than or equal greater than or equal For string fields such as observer code or object name equal and not equal are permitted The constrained filter mentioned above and the resulting observation plot are shown below Notice the implicit and s represented by the filter dialog selections Currently 8 such conjunctive terms are permitted in a single filter 45 46 Filter Name luntitiea Filter 10 2454880 2454980 IZ Ego _ Include Use selected observation Fainter Than Discrepant Excluded Cancel e sm co Brightness magnitude yJ wo co N 8 44 8 51 8 61 8 71 8 81 Light Curve for W UMA 2454550 2454600 2 454 650 2 454 700 2454750 2 454 800 2 45
85. ith the Bayer designated stars As each new variable in a constellation was discovered it received the next letter combination in line The rules for naming stars in order of their discovery 1s this Stars with existing Greek letter Bayer designations not given new designations 116 Otherwise start with the letter and go through Z Continue with RR through RZ and then use SS through SZ TT through TZ and so on until ZZ Then it reverts to the beginning of the alphabet AA through AZ BB through BZ CC through CZ and so on until reaching QZ omitting J in both the first and second positions Note that the first letter is never further up the alphabet than the second that 15 to say no star can be BA CA CB DA or so on The Latin script is abandoned after 334 combinations of letters and numbers are used starting with V335 V336 and so on Other Naming Conventions As if that weren t confusing enough there are now a host of other prefixes and numbers assigned to variable stars and objects The following 1s an alphanumerical guide to help you understand what these names mean and where they came from ISWASP Jxxxxxx xx xxxxxx x Variables discovered serendipitously by SuperWASP a UK extra solar planet detection program SuperWASP consists of two robotic observatories LaPalma and South Africa that operate continuously all year round The observatories each consist of eight wide angle cameras that sim
86. l Visual Observer MDP MDP MDP MDP MDP MDP MDP MDP MDP MDP MDP MDP KJMA KJMA MDP MDP MDP EJDA MDP MDP MDP MDP MDP MDP BPEB GCDA MDP TSP MDP MDP MDP MDP MDP Validation Prevalidated 3 4 Prevalidated 3 7 Prevalidated 3 4 Prevalidated 3 4 Prevalidated 3 7 Prevalidated 3 7 Prevalidated 3 7 Prevalidated 3 7 Prevalidated 34 Prevalidated 3 4 Prevalidated 3 7 Prevalidated 4 4 Prevalidated 32 Prevalidated 3 7 Prevalidated 32 Prevalidated 37 Prevalidated 44 Prevalidated 4 4 Prevalidated 34 Prevalidated 37 Prevalidated 37 Prevalidated 34 Prevalidated 37 Prevalidated 37 Prevalidated 37 Prevalidated 37 Prevalidated 34 Prevalidated 34 Prevalidated 44 Prevalidated 37 Prevalidated 37 Prevalidated 44 Prevalidated 34 Prevalidated 44 Prevalidated 37 3 7 4 4 3 7 3 7 4 4 3 4 3 4 4 4 37 3 7 4 4 4 7 37 3 4 34 44 47 4 7 37 34 44 37 44 44 44 44 37 44 37 44 44 47 37 47 44 Select An Comp Star 1 Comp Star 2 Charts 10star 10star 10star 10star 10star 10star 10star 10star 10startuto 10star 10star not sure Star Train 10star Star Train Star Train 10star oth 10star fo 10startuto 10 star 10startuto 10startuto 10startuto 10 star 10 star 10 star 10star 10 star 10 star 8914BUN 10 Star tu 10 Star tu 10 Star tu 10 Star tu 10 Star tu Create Selection Filt
87. l places to be customized for various categories of numeric values that appear as in VStar s user interface e g parameter dialog fields The Set Default Precision Values button resets all precision values back to their factory settings 105 Series Colors Series Size Time JD phase 6 8 Magnitude including error or uncertainty 6 All other values e g period 6 8 Set Default Precision Values Apply Cancel The Star Groups tab permits new groups of stars to be added to the dialog that opens when File New Star from AAVSO Database is selected 106 Series Colors Series Size Numeric Precision Delete Group Add Group amp Stars Apply Cancel Suppose we want to add a new group for novae do so click the Add Group button and enter the text Novae into the dialog as shown 107 The Preferences dialog now shows empty Novae group Series Colors Series Size Numeric Precision stars Add Group Delete Group X Add Star Delete Star The next step is to click the Add Star button and enter the text V0339 Del into the dialog as shown VStar will show the busy mouse cursor as it goes away to the Variable Star Index VS X to ask if this object exists If so it will be added to the group The Group and Stars sections of the pane 108 should now look like this Group Novae Hd Star 0339 Del Hd Click the
88. le is not of a suitable format an error dialog will be displayed Some observation source plug ins may be able to accept a URL Uniform Resource Locator or web page address instead of a file to read observations from In such cases the dialog will have a Request URL button as follows 11 Additive Load Date Modified 007198959 2009 Tuesday September 27 20 Add to current Request URL File Format fits csv dat tsv txt Cope Selecting the button will yield this dialog Some observation source plug ins may only accept a URL as input in which case the following form of the Enter URL dialog will be presented to the user Add to current 12 The second file dialog above also shows that observation source plug ins may handle additional file extensions e g fits aiding in file list filtering in the file chooser Additive Loads Ifthe Add to current checkbox is selected in any observation source dialog the loaded observations will be added to any already loaded irrespective the object In this way observations from different sources can be combined a single VStar session If the newly loaded observations use Heliocentric Julian Dates HJD the previously loaded observations will be converted to use HJD or vice versa If the first data set loaded is from the AID the object s Right Ascension RA and Declination Dec n
89. lizes a discrete form of the Fourier transform the computation time will increase as the square of the number of data points For 100 000 data points or more consider averaging or filtering the data points prior to processing As it tests each frequency VStar records the frequency period and power Frequencies with the highest power levels are the most likely possibilities for the actual frequency of a periodic fluctuation in the data if it has one after all not all data are periodic VStar keeps a record of the top highest power 100 frequencies periods see Top Hits pane in the DCDFT result dialog To specify a range of frequencies or periods to test choose option the DCDFT with Frequency DCDFT with Period Range options VStar requests the low frequency or period to test the high frequency or period and for the resolution The resolution is the spacing between test frequencies or periods For instance to test a range of periods from as low as 100 days to as high as 150 days if a resolution of 1 is specified VStar will test all periods from 100 to 150 in I day steps Note that non zero values must be entered in the parameter dialog The following figure shows an example of the parameter dialog for the scenario described above 65 Parameters Low Period 100 High Period 150 Resolution The DCDFT with Frequency Range option populates the dialog with an initial frequency 69 range and resolution as
90. llations QPOs in SS Cyg FBS hhmm dd d Stands for First Byurakan Survey and the coordinates of the object The First Byurakan Survey FBS also known as the Markarian survey covers about 17 000 square degrees FSVS Jhhmm ddmm Discoveries from the Faint Sky Variability Survey the first deep wide field multi color time sampled CCD photometry survey It was specifically aimed at detecting point sources as faint as 25th magnitude in V and I and 24 2 in B Targets were faint CVs other interacting binaries brown dwarfs and low mass stars and Kuiper Belt Objects HAT xxx xxxxxxx Stars with exoplanet transits discovered by the Hungarian made Automated Telescope Network HATNet Exoplanet Survey http hatnet org HadVxxx This represents variables discovered by Katsumi Haseda Haseda s most recent discovery was Nova 2002 Ophiuchus V2540 Oph He 3 xxxx Variables from Henize K G 1976 Observations of Southern Emission Line Stars Ap J Suppl 30 491 HS hhmm ddmm The Hamburg Quasar Survey is a wide angle objective prism survey searching for quasars in the northern sky avoiding the Milky Way The limiting magnitude is approximately 17 5B The taking of the plates was completed in 1997 http www hs uni hamburg de EN For Exg Sur hgs index html HVxxxxx Preliminary designations of variables discovered at Harvard Observatory Lanning xx Discoveries of UV bright stellar objects by Lanning from Schm
91. lues for example grouping variable star observations in increments of 5 Julian days See http pic dhe ibm com infocenter spssstat v20r0mO index jsp topicz9o2Fcom ibm spss statistics help Je2Fidh webhelp scatter options palette htm BSM Epoch Photometry Data from the Bright Star Monitor AAVSO database currently Data there are 14 million photometric observations of approximately one million stars See http www aavso org bright star monitor epoch photometry database Catalina Sky Survey An automated telescope survey of Near Earth Objects http www lpl arizona edu css Transient phenomenon of many types such as variable star outbursts are also surveyed http crts caltech edu CLEANest A method of refining multiple periods in variable star data simultaneously In VStar this can be applied to a period analysis DCDFT result Comparison Star A star of known constant magnitude that a nearly variable star is compared to in order to estimate the variable s apparent brightness Confidence Level The range of values for a mathematical variable for which there is high confidence usually 95 that the actual value lies within that range Cousins A standard set of photometric filters See http www company com library optec filter_monograph pdf Discrepant Data A data point that appears to vary significantly well outside of normal error bars from the mean and or other observations taken at the same time The AAVSO has
92. ncel Clicking OK here adds seven new top hits with the same power value shown multiply selected in the top hits list and annotated on the power spectrum 73 74 Frequency 10 01246106 g0 01312336 si 10 00264550 110 00825764 110 00078125 10 01390821 0 01251400 0 00712400 0 25000000 6 20000000 78 00000000 121 10000000 1 1280 00000000 71 90000000 650 00000000 79 91050024 71 90106414 383 58266206 89 43743851 120 54001929 1287 00128700 105 65240359 525 76235542 66 83598449 183 68846436 53 58195360 96 22786759 58 55829478 644 32989691 273 00027300 62 76675872 232 12627669 140 37057833 Create Model CLEANest New Phase Plot 155 03700075 5 155 03700075 155 03700075 155 03700075 52 49507954 30 55180816 16 64383717 10 65336091 9 67355540 8 93435366 7 35939340 5 17392489 4 59743629 4 57453526 3 97852523 3 63694267 3 58053729 3 55512904 3 25010115 3 10086660 2 85713212 1 94835706 0 00902804 0 00902804 0 00902804 0 00902804 0 00902804 0 00902804 0 13555936 0 10439146 0 07559653 0 06032472 0 05814818 0 06014214 0 05110878 0 04528735 0 04004108 0 04110101 0 03842527 0 03622824 0 03727124 0 03797365 0 03404586 0 03339075 0 03207046 0 02636216 Amplitude vs Frequency Data Top Hits Period Analysis DC DFT for AA Cas series Visual Ml as 0000 0 0025 0 0050 0 0075 0 0100 0 0125 0 0150 0 0175 0 0200 0 0025 0 0050
93. nd Useful Links General Information on VStar and Variable Star Observing AAVSO VStar Overview and Download page The starting point for using VStar includes instructions for downloading the program including helpful hints for dealing with firewalls and other vagaries as well as links for further instructions and tutorials http www aavso org vstar overview VStar SourceForge Project page A source for downloading VStar for those who have difficulty downloading directly from the AAVSO website for example when firewalls are in use Also the downloadable distribution archive contains additional documents and resources that are not easy to make available via the WebStart download method https sourceforge net projects vstar AAVSO Plug in Library page Instructions for installing various plug ins for VStar as well as links to those currently available http www aavso org vstar plugin library AAVSO VStar Forum The home page for all ongoing and past discussion of VStar its usage and problems users have encountered with it http www aavso org forums about aavso vstar AAVSO Download Format detailed list and explanation of the format and terms used in A AVSO data sets http www aavso org format data file WebObs A portal on the AAVSO website for uploading new observations of variable stars and searching for previously uploaded observations Note solar observations are not included in this data set
94. nteractive example using JavaScript http www arachnoid com polysolve Weisstein E W Root Mean Square Concise explanation from Wolfram MathWorld with useful links http mathworld wolfram com Root Mean Square html Wikipedia Polynomial Regression Standard Wikipedia entry including history and references http en wikipedia org wiki Polynomial regression Wikipedia Akaike Information Criteria AIC Standard Wikipedia entry including history and references http en wikipedia org wiki Akaike_ information criterion 128 Wikipedia Curve Fitting http en wikipedia org wiki Curve fitting Useful Links for Regular Expressions for Observation List Pattern Search Regular Expressions A detailed website on the use of regular expressions in data searches including numerous examples and tutorials http www regular expressions info Regular Expressions Quick Start A quick tutorial on the basics of using regular expressions in data searches http www regular expressions info quickstart html Wikipedia Regular Expressions Standard Wikipedia entry including history and references http en wikipedia org wiki Regular expression Regular Expressions User Guide An overview of regular expressions that explains the basics very thoroughly http www zytrax com tech web regex htm 129 Further Reading Benn D 2012 Algorithms Observations VStar JAAVSO vol 40 p 852 An overview of the his
95. observation source plug in to use makeVisible java lang String seriesName Makes the specified series in the current dataset visible pause long millis Pause for the specified number of milliseconds phasePlot double period double epoch Create a phase plot given period and epoch phasePlotHode Switch to phase plot mode saveLightCurve java lang String path int width int height Save the light curve to a PNG image file savePhasePlot java lang String path int width int height Save the phase plot to a PNG image file saveRawData java lang String path java lang String delimiter Save the raw dataset light curve observation list to a file of rows of values separated by the specified delimiter Currently only the JavaScript language is supported but others may be permitted in future such as Python or Ruby 112 run script in VStar select Tool gt Run Script Run Script Doing so opens a file chooser requesting the script file to be executed ANDS Open tmp H4 dcdft png del cep 2440587 2444239 out csv del cep 2440587 2444239 out tsv delCep png delCepDCDFT png delCepPowerSpectrum png EN dist eagles etaAgl png example js extlib f2c del 2440587 2444239 phase Date Modified Tuesday November 27 2012 10 56 PM s Thursday August 9 2012 11 29 PM Friday August 10 2012 6 04 PM o Friday August 10 2
96. on M 2004 Time Series Analysis of Variable Star Data JAAVSO vol 32 p 41 An introduction to the application of Time series Analysis to variable star data based on an AAVSO meeting workshop http www aavso org files jaavso v32n 1 41 pdf Variable Star Astronomy Chapter 12 Variable Stars and Phase Diagrams A very basic introduction to the statistics of variable star data written for the Variable Star Astronomy 130 formerly Hands on Astrophysics curriculum http www aavso org sites default files Chapter12 pdf 131 License Information VStar itself is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License the details of which be found here http www gnu org licenses agpl html Like most modern software VStar is dependent upon libraries of code written by others for some of its functionality most notably for plotting database access and some statistical operations See https sourceforge net p vstar code trunk extlib ReadMe txt for the most up to date information about the libraries used by VStar This document 15 licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY license This license lets others distribute remix tweak and build upon your work even commercially as long as they credit you for the original creation This is the most accommodating of licenses offered Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials See the following links for license information e http cr
97. or an AID loaded dataset like this VSX 15 consulted for such information 39 For an observation source other than AID e g AAVSO upload or download files ASAS Kepler VSX is not consulted so the summary information will be different Here is an example of an Information Dialog for ASAS R Car data Information Summary for r car asas txt Source Type ASAS File Source Name r car asas txt loaded Sun Jul 21 12 20 57 CST 2013 Series Loaded Observations 1159 ASAS 1 537 ASAS 2 602 ASAS 3 20 Statistics Confidence Interval Mean error bars denote 95 Confidence Interval twice Standard Error Mean Source Series ASAS 7 anova ASAS 2 F value 227 95809569 on 101 and 500 degrees of freedom p value 0 000001 The Series section lists all series present in the dataset e g the filter band or visual observations along with the number of observations in each series The Statistics section provides statistical information including the standard confidence interval of mean error bars the series that is currently selected to yield the binned mean series and the ANOVA analysis of variance statistic based upon this mean series The ANOVA p value indicates whether there 1s sufficient evidence to reject the null hypothesis that there 1s no non trivial signal of some kind A low p value indicates that the probability of there being no non trivial signal 1s low A high value indicates that the probability of the
98. persists across VStar invocations A change can be cancelled via the Cancel button The Set Default Colors button resets all series colors back to their factory settings This is particularly important for series colors since AAVSO defines a set of standard colors for many series This does not include synthetic series such as Filtered Model Residuals Means Excluded The Series Size tab controls the size of a series observation as it appears on a plot The series is selected from a list and the size selected from another list Clicking the Apply or OK buttons confirms the size change The Set Default Sizes button resets all series sizes back to their factory settings 103 Numeric Precision Star Groups Set Default Sizes Apply Cancel On a related note while not part of VStar Preferences some other aspects of a plot can be configured for the current VStar session only by selecting Properties from the context menu e g by right clicking on Windows ctrl click on Mac OS X 104 Chart Properties Properties SUPE Domain Axis is Range Axis Appearance Copy areal Save as Label Time JD Font Tahoma Bold 14 Select Print Paint C Select Other foom In b 7 Range Zoom Show tick labels Tick label font 12 Select Auto Range F Show tick marks The Numeric Precision tab permits the number of decima
99. ponding to the root directory pet liye phase piotspng eta AQ Phase plot png Opening the second of these will reveal a phase plot for eta Aquilae as follows 114 Phase Plot for eta Sep 17 2013 database period 7 176641 epoch 2436084 656000 4 00 Brightness magnitude 1 00 0 75 0 50 1 25 0 00 0 25 0 50 0 75 1 00 Phase Johnson V Visual 115 Variable star names used in 5 contributed by Mike Simonsen Introduction This section details the names prefixes and designations that are used specifically for naming variable stars The one major exception is the Greek letter names used by Bayer There are many variables whose names are derived from the sky survey they were cataloged in such as Guide Star Catalog GSC USNO CCD Astrograph Catalog UCAC Bonner Durchmusterung BD etc These are not included these because many of these stars will eventually receive a VSX designation or are also known by other names This list is not exhaustive but it includes most of the prefixes and naming conventions typically encountered searching VSX or using VSTAR Greek Letter Names Bayer Designations A Bayer designation 1 a stellar designation in which a specific star is identified by a Greek letter followed by the genitive form of its parent constellation s Latin name Most of the brighter stars were assigned their first systematic names by the German astronomer Johann Bayer in 1603 in his star
100. re being no non trivial signal is high A low p value does not mean that there 1s a high probability of a signal being present Also the question of what kind of signal there may be is a separate issue e g it could be for example the result of actual variability in the star s brightness observer bias 40 or an artifact observation frequency As Grant Foster 2010 says in Analyzing Light Curves A Practical Guide 5 also important never to forget that a statistically significant result doesn t mean that our model is correct only that the null hypothesis is false See the References and Further Reading section especially Foster 2010 for more information 41 Filtering Observations It is often useful to work with a subset of the data based upon criteria other than the series in which the data resides e g magnitude or time range observer code or some combination VStar has four mechanisms by which to create a filtered subset The Observation Filter Dialog View gt Filter Creation of a filter from the current plot view View gt Filter From Plot An Observation List selection filter Create Selection Filter button A custom observation filter plug in Consider the following W UMa observations Light Curve for W UMA Brightness magnitude Uk N N N m e wW mew Set erate 99 9 9 9 9 Q SSC Ui SPON Re wh LEDS
101. res AIC BIC Where they can be determined extrema minimum and maximum magnitude and JD Note that some details of this list may change future VStar versions e g additional function representations information criteria extrema determination methods Notice that the Excel and R functions reveal the polynomial degree in the number of coefficients as explained earlier in this section Notice also that each time term has a Julian Date zero point subtracted from it reflecting the way which the polynomial fit was created in order to reduce the magnitude of values and possible loss of precision when higher powers are involved The R function can be used conjunction with observations model data and the script available at the following location to plot the model equation https sourceforge net p vstar code HEAD tree trunk script plot_model R The Excel formula should be copied and pasted into a text editor and newlines removed before pasting it into Excel A treatment of RMS and Information Criteria is beyond the scope of this document See Foster 2010 and the relevant Polynomial Fit sub section of References and Further Reading A polynomial fit can also be useful to characterize the overall shape of some light curves Take for example the following light curve for Nova Delphini 2013 88 Light Curve for Nova Del 2013 vb Boh RR RR wo C n un un 5 4 Brightness
102. s or ctrl click on Mac OS X Zoom In Out items as was done for the power spectrum shown 1n the Introduction section Before leaving this tab notice the Logarithmic checkbox If selected the power or amplitude in the case of the Amplitude vs Frequency plot axis will become a base 10 log scale This can sometimes help to reveal frequencies of interest Selecting the Top Hits tab shows the top hits referred to above in tabular form 62 eoo Frequency 0 13946226 0 14176109 0 13678030 0 27892453 7624256 0 28122335 0 13409833 0 14444306 0 41838679 0 10536297 0 06858172 0 10306414 0 42068562 0 14942385 0 58198675 0 17586038 0 415 70482 0 17317841 0 03946322 0 03678126 0 01072787 0 27356059 0 10766180 0 58428558 0 38390436 Period Analysis DC DFT for eta Power vs Frequency Period 7 17039849 7 05412176 7 31099454 3 585199725 3 62000701 3 55589244 7 45721443 6 92314337 2 39013283 9 49100019 14 58114554 9 70769536 2 37707200 6 69237193 1 71825217 5 68632909 2 40555304 5 77439171 25 34004905 27 18776096 93 21518043 3 6554 9727 9 28834538 1 71149184 2 60481542 Amplitude vs Frequency 413 05 793301 179 53117465 171 11829754 60 30037260 29 29911506 24 43931680 20 68094814 17 99564602 12 32965424 9 81780191 9 595 72999 9 42094550 8 48601531 7 59515641 7 38488388 7 05278187 6 34992068 5 66317097 5 47302860 5 21778103 4 98850751 4 8 28188 4 5483948 4 65395022 4
103. sins SAH Prevalidated ENSEMBLE 6054 no 2455866 28194 2011 OCT 31 4 0 Visual RJG Prevalidated 34 541986 no 2455866 28333 2011 31 4 Visual Prevalidated 34 SA1986 no 2455866 29028 2011 OCT 31 3 78 Visual VUG Prevalidated 321 SPA VSS BUK no 3 3 3 2455866 3688 2011 OCT 31 Visual REP Prevalidated NA NA no 2456405 8 2013 APR 23 Visual AAX Prevalidated 37 ATLAS K no 2456405 8125 2013 APR 23 Visual AAX Prevalidated 37 ATLAS K no The following shows the result of applying the pattern d 21 to the Comp Star 2 column so that only those observations whose second comparison star consists of 2 digits will be shown 26 Plot Means Model Residuals Pattern Search Comp Star 2 Columns d 2 Apply Reset Show all data Select All Create Selection Filter Julian Day Calendar Date Magnitude Uncertainty Band Observer Validation Comp Star 1 Comp Star 2 Charts Comment Comments Trans 2455695 8431 2011 MAY 14 Visual AAX Prevalidated 40 ATLAS K BSC 2455698 8681 2011 MAY 17 Visual AAX Prevalidated 33 ATLAS BK MOON BSC 2455704 8618 2011 MAY 23 Visual AAX Prevalidated 33 ATLAS K BSC 2455705 6757 2011 MAY 24 Visual Prevalidated 34 1990 2455709 3965 2011 MAY 27 Visual REP Prevalidated 37 1990 2455709 866 2011 MAY 28 Visual AAX Prevalidated 37 ATLAS 2455710 42708 2011 MAY 28 Visual Prevalidated 37 AAVSO 2455710 4896 2011 MAY
104. sters and galaxies through photographic surveys thru 3 Johmmss ss ddmmss s The Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment ROTSE is dedicated to the observation and detection of optical transients on time scales of seconds to days The emphasis is on gamma ray bursts GRBs Objects detected by this survey are designated with positions to 0 1 precision http www rotse net 5 xxxxx These are preliminary designations of variables discovered at Sonneberg Observatory SBS hhmm dd d Indicates objects discovered by the Second Byurakan Sky Survey plus the coordinates of the object SDSSp Jhhmmss ss ddmmss s These are discoveries from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey The positions of the objects are given in the names SDSS Sloan Digital Sky Survey p preliminary astrometry Jhhmmss sst ddmmss s the equinox J2000 coordinates In subsequent papers on CVs detected by SDSS Szkody et al the p was dropped and the names became simply SDSS Jhhmmss ss ddmmss s SN YYY Yaa IAU named supernovae SVS xxx Soviet Variable Stars indicates preliminary designations of Soviet discovered variables hhmm dd The Astronomer Magazine in England has a program that monitors variable stars and suspected variable stars TAV stands for The Astronomer Variable plus the 1950 coordinates TASV hhmm dd TASV stands for The Astronomer Suspected Variable plus the 1950 coordinates The Astronomer Variable star page c
105. t For example here is eta Aquilae with a phase plot using a period of 7 5 days instead of 7 176641 days 54 Phase Plot for eta Jul 27 2013 database period 7 50000000 epoch 2436084 656000 3 11 E e J 4 3 3 ee ee 2 3 4 4 ee c e we ee ee we ee e 3 5 4 ome wr acc ww TS ee oe 3 61 e c en ak e cam we ee 8 o o ee 8 ae e m 3 3 41 oo ae meme e nes Shee oa xf mon ge Eri Ser LER AER 3 8 a meo erae ramen oce er o FIT y te 2 3 94 GM NEAR m Vc x m e ane E 4 0 22 m UE CN E gt T ae oe T we mie e ng e 2 i 4 1 eee ene a 7 2 gt ame ama a zc owen ee gt 4 o e Um 5 4 2 e ee ee e e e me a 00000 me eles ef 4 3 ees np ame RS 0 ru a o ay 4 41 4 59999 ewe o naw co
106. t for W UMA period 0 333637 epoch 2454844 743135 10 99 08 97 06 05 04 03 92 951 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 Phase The contents of the Plot Pane can be saved to a file as a PNG image or printed via the File menu s Save Print items or the corresponding toolbar buttons 20 New Star from AAVSO Database New Star from File Print Lt An example of the Save Dialog 1s shown below All plot image files are saved in PNG format If the filename entered does not have a png or PNG suffix VStar will add this In the example below when the Save button is clicked the current plot will be saved to a file called omiCetLC png Print Dialog looks like this on OS X machine 21 22 Settings Format For HL 2040 H Brother HL 2040 series CUPS Paper Size 20 99 by 29 70 cm Orientation Scale Observation List VStar s observation list 15 selected via the Observations tab in the main window consists of a tabular view of the loaded observations and a Search Creation pane The following shows the observations list with eta observations loaded from AID Plot Means Model Residuals Pattern Search _ Show all data Select All Create Selection Filter Apply Reset Julian Day V Columns
107. telescope Limiting magnitudes vary from field to field ranging from 15 49 to 16 67 The blue objects detected tend to be quasars and cataclysmic variables The CVs were documented Green R F et al 1986 Cataclysmic Variable Candidates from the Palomar Green Survey Ap J Suppl 61 305 PKS hhmm ddd This was an extensive radio survey Ekers 1969 of the southern sky undertaken at Parkes PKS Australia originally at 408 MHz and later at 1410 MHz and 2650 MHz These sources are designated by their truncated 1950 position For example 3C 273 PKS 1226 023 This is still the most common and useful system of naming quasars ROSAT 15 an acronym for the ROentgen SATellite ROSAT was an X ray observatory developed 119 through cooperative program between Germany the United States and the United Kingdom The satellite was designed and operated by Germany and was launched by the United States on June 1 1990 It was turned off on February 12 1999 Prefixes for x ray sources detected by ROSAT include IRXS RXS and RX The J2000 coordinates for the source are then stated according to the accuracy of the X ray position and the density of stars the field arcsecond accuracy RX J012345 6 765432 tenth arcmin accuracy RX J012345 7654 6 arcmin accuracy RX J0123 7 7654 Distressingly these can all refer to a single object Rosino xxx or Variables discovered by Italian astronomer L Rosino primarily in clu
108. the model is Alternate models can be compared in this way See also BIC A statistical test that checks whether or not variations in the data are simply noise or are statistically significant ANOVA See Analysis of Variance APASS Analysis of Variance The AAVSO Photometric All Sky Survey an ongoing project to use automated telescopes to create a photometric catalog of all stars between approximately 10th and 17th magnitude using five filters Johnson B and V and Sloan r 1 http www aavso org apass ASAS All Sky Automated Survey an ongoing project to use photometric automated telescopes to discover and observe all stars with variability including exoplanet systems and variable stars brighter than 14th magnitude http www astrouw edu pl asas page main AUID oee AAVSO Unique ID Band A narrow region of the electromagnetic spectrum in which the magnitude is measured A number of standard bands are frequently used including the visual V band centered on 551 Angstroms See http en wikipedia org wiki Photometric system and http spiff rit edu classes phys440 lectures filters filters html 122 Bayesian Information Like the AIC a statistical method for selecting which of multiple Criteria models best fits the data it weighs the relative complexity of each model more harshly than AIC See Bayesian Information Criteria Binned Data that is grouped by a certain range of va
109. tory and possible future of VStar http www aavso org sites default files jaavso v40n2 852 pdf Benn D VStar Blog An ongoing blog with archive that discusses the usage of VStar as well as updates to the program http dbenn wordpress com category astronomy science vstar Ferraz Mello S 1981 Estimation of Periods From Unequally Spaced Observations Astron J vol 86 p 619 A technical article on the use of Fourier Transforms as applied to time series data with gaps in observations http adsabs Foster G 1995 The CLEANest Fourier Spectrum Astron J vol 109 no 4 p 1889 A technical article describing the development and application of the CLEANest algorithm Foster G 1996 Wavelets for Period Analysis of Unevenly Sampled Time Series Astron J vol 112 p 1709 A technical article describing the development and application of the Weighted Wavelet Z transform WWZ http adsabs harvard edu full 1996AJ 112 1709F Foster G Analyzing Light Curves A Practical Guide 2010 Lulu Considered the standard introduction to variable star light curve analysis details the application of various statistical approaches and algorithms to variable star data E 11037112 Foster G Understanding Statistics Basic Theory Practice 2013 Lulu An introduction to statistical principles and techniques utilizing basic pus inet 20680689 html Templet
110. trol Dialog If the dataset was loaded from the AID another dialog will be opened asking whether to submit a discrepant report to AAVSO HQ e g O AAVSO Discrepant Report Submit Report to AAVSO Discrepant Observation Details AUID 000 500 Name R CAR JD 2456423 06286 Mag 6 1 Comments optional 4 E Le Of course this particular observation is fine and no discrepant report was actually submitted Before the observation report is sent you will be asked to authenticate with your AAVSO web credentials This same Discrepant checkbox and reporting capability also exists in each Observation List row To find out more about the criteria for reporting an observation as discrepant see the Zapper tool s online help http www aavso org sites default files software zapper zapperhelp pdf 33 Plot Control Dialog Selecting the View gt Plot Control item Analysis Tool _ Raw Data Observation Details Plot Control Zoom In Zoom Qut opens the plot control dialog The example below shows the Plot Control Dialog resulting from an AID load of R Car The dialog has a few distinct features e Visibility checkboxes Toggling these immediately changes the series that are visible on the plot and in the observation list Select 11 Deselect 11 buttons make it easier to work with many series e Mean series source radio buttons Selecting a radio button changes the series that 1s used to
111. ultaneously monitor the sky for planetary transit events http www superwasp org 2MASS Jxxxxxx xxxxxx Variables discovered by The Two Micron All Sky Survey 2MASS a survey of the whole sky in three infrared wavebands around 2 micrometers http irsa ipac caltech edu Missions 2mass html 207 Jhhmmss s ddmmss Objects discovered by the 2dF QSO Redshift Survey The aim 15 to obtain spectra of QSOs out to redshifts so high the visible light emitted by these objects has shifted into the far infrared The observations are actually of the ultra violet part of the spectrum that has been redshifted into the visible As with most QSO surveys a serendipitous byproduct is the discovery of CVs and other blue stars A description and awesome pictures of the equipment can be found here http www 2dfquasar org Spec Cat basic html Home site http www 2dfquasar org index html 3C xxx These are objects from the Third Cambridge 3C catalog Edge et al 1959 based radio wavelength observations at 158 MHz There are 471 3C sources numbered sequentially by right ascension All 3C sources are north of 22 declination The 3C objects of interest to variable star observers are all active galaxies quasars BL Lacs etc Antipin xx Variable stars discovered by Sergej V Antipin a junior researcher working for the General Catalogue of Variable Stars Group ASAS hhmmss ddmm m This is the acronym for All Sky Automated Survey which
112. ultiplied 80 by corresponding time values each raised to a power the number or index of the coefficient 0 creates a curve that approximates the data Notice that Bois just 80 The process through which the coefficients are determined is beyond the scope of this document See References and Further Reading for more background information about polynomial models and data fitting The degree of the polynomial will have a bearing on the values of the minima or maxima critical points or extrema found since roughly speaking the higher the degree the better the polynomial approximates the features of the data In VStar a polynomial fit can be created via Analysis gt Polynomial Fit menu item or the corresponding toolbar button Tool Help TM Phase Plot os B m rT ere EALI E 4 L fey COLS xu Models DC DFT Standard Scan DC DFT with Frequency Range DC DFT with Period Range WWZ with Frequency Range WWZ with Period Range Polynomial Fit Selecting one of these will result in a Series Selection Dialog being invoked 81 Analysis Discrepant Excluded Fainter Than C Filtered C Means Model C Johnson V Visual Cancel J Residuals In this case the Visual series is selected and clicking the OK button yields the polynomial degree dialog This is

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