Speaker
Description
As long as mankind has studied the cosmos, there’s still much to be learned about it. One type of heavenly body astronomers worldwide are still trying to decipher is variable stars. They are named as such due to their tendency to change brightness from Earth’s point of view, regularly or irregularly. Some of these stars don’t actually change brightness, but merely appear to change brightness due to external factors, while others change brightness due to fluctuations in the star itself. This year, the SWOSU Physics Club is aiming to learn more about what makes variable stars and how to observe them. In order to do this, we must find at least one variable star that will be visible from our observatory for at least the next few months and learn various methods to determine how bright they are at a given time. This sounds simple enough, but the task involves several nuances that we will have to take the time to master. So far, we have had very limited opportunities to go observing, so our data is far from conclusive at this time, but we hope that we will eventually have some useful data and be able to share it with the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO), an organization dedicated to helping amateur astronomers learn how to study variable stars, and comparing their data to better understand them.