Leading expert amateurs in the field of variable star astronomy from
Britain, the rest of Europe, America, Australia and New Zealand agree
that the papers

Eclipses of OY Carinae in Outburst

http://www.aavso.org/publications/ej...v37n1/40.shtml

Consecutive Eclipses of Z Chamaeleontis in Outburst

http://www.aavso.org/publications/ej...v37n1/36.shtml

have little or no meaning, being at best the reporting of a couple of
ToM (Times of Minima) each.

This was the honest and considered opinion of eight people, three
quarters of whom are AAVSO members, and three quarters (with some
large overlap between the two sets) of whom have published papers
based on variable star period analysis to their names, and over half
of them having in the literature papers based on O-C work and heavily
involved in the archiving and recording of ToM work for national and
larger regional groups, and nearly all of them hold positions and/or
maintain active roles within four or more regional groups.

One of the European experts even asked the AAVSO Director if this
precedent meant that the eJAAVSO would now be regularly publishing
papers based on what amounted to little more than a couple of ToM.
For those unfamiliar with variable stars, publications of ToM work
usually include many ToM, as for example in this eJAAVSO

Recent Minima of 154 Eclipsing Binary Stars

http://www.aavso.org/publications/ej...v37n1/44.shtml

All the experts agreed, indeed several stated without prompting, and
actually brought the point up themselves bringing it to attention,
that the OY Car and Z Cha papers had no meaning other than the stating
of the times. The other points made in the paper had no meaning
within either the scientific context or the specific observed minus
calculated procedure.

Yet it seems to highlight this point is to have people sympathise with
Martin Nicholson and suggest to him that as an AAVSO member and
publisher of the papers he should report this matter to AAVSO.

The AAVSO Director was already well aware of the issue, as already
stated an experienced and well known European AAVSO member, involved
in both the archiving and processing and analytical use of much ToM
work for more than one major European group, had already expressed
their strong concern to the AAVSO Director in an email with respect to
the dedication of entire articles to the publication of papers that
had little content other than the two ToM measures involved in each.

Some quarters are not entirely happy that JAAVSO has gone electronic
only. Yet there is no problem there, printed copies can still be
ordered via print on demand, and fully formatted PDF articles can be
freely downloaded for use.

The bigger concern is whether JAAVSO will maintain a reputation for
scientific work. As stated eight experts in the field could not see
why these papers were published, and were not impressed with them.
Nearly all were AAVSO members and at least one of these members
expressed their concern on the matter to the AAVSO.

If an amateur astronomer or an amateur astronomy group wishes to claim
scientific credentials and a reputation for scientific work it is not
a simple matter of running crying to teacher telling tales if someone
advises on an open list that this publicly available material is not
scientific. The papers cannot even be refuted via publication as they
are not even wrong. O-C cannot be used to confirm or refute elements
in the way stated. Anyone knowing or having done any O-C work will be
well aware of this. Isolated lone points in O-C are not really even O-
C, the sum of all known O-C points have to be investigated.

The sad history of IYA2009 in the English speaking variable star field
may well consist of a large number of claims of extra science being
done this year with very little evidence to support it.

Hopefully the wider aspect of IYA2009, introducing many people to
their first sights through a telescope, will have more than made up
for this.

However, if the veteran and experienced community wishes to make
claims about being grown up and scientific it has to do a proper job
of it.

For the professional community will soon notice slapdash work. The
professional community don't even acknowledge amateur scientists
properly a lot of the time when the amateur astronomer has done good.

Take the recent impact scar on Jupiter. Anthony Wesley discovered and
noted the similarities of this scar to SL9 impact scars from fifteen
years ago. Press releases from big observatories using sophisticated
equipment also say it is an impact scar, but still only by comparing
their data to their experiences with the SL9 event.

Anthony Wesley needs to be strongly congratulated for not only
noticing the scar, having the experience and knowledge to
differentiate it from the many transient spots and blemishes Jupiter's
atmosphere exhibits, but also for noting the similiarity to impact
events.

http://jupiter.samba.org/jupiter-impact.html (scroll down and read the
observation report)

Yet several press releases from the big professional organisations
only credited an unnamed "amateur astronomer" for discovering the
scar, and as of yesterday few if any repeated the point that Mr Wesley
himself felt, after a process of elimination, that it was likely an
impact scar, and informed people of the discovery because of this
possibility, reaslising that if correct it would be a significant and
important find and need monitoring as soon as possible (for impact
scars change over time), else the big observatories would not have
known so promptly.

That is, as of yesterday he was not always credited for discovering
the scar and announcing it, and was as far as can be seen not credited
at all as having made decisions himself with respect to this likely
being an impact scar within most of the press releases.

If amateur work is not properly acknowledged fully even when it
deserves to be, due to the occasional attitude of the professionals
(all the press releases were very careful to mention the names and
details of professional observatory staff and research group principle
investigators when they released their images, for instance), then it
is likely to get even worse if utter bunkum is presented and published
in venues such that people can claim it to be scientific work, but
professional will likely view it more as evidence of amateurs being,
well, amateur.

Alas poor JAAVSO? Hopefully not. It is needed by amateur variable
star scientists to show their worth, so likely has a somewhat larger
and possibly unfair onus upon it that most to be careful of such
problems as unscientific work.

And before the bleeding hearts start, it is leading AAVSO members and
variable star period analysis experts from around the World who see no
merit in this paper, and in some cases they have commented upon this
to AAVSO. So AAVSO knows, it doesn't have to be told, but you can
complain to AAVSO if you wish.

The bleeding hearts have got to remember that this person posts links
bragging about his scientific work everywhere. He mentioned one of
these papers on the GRAS forum to make a point that he was doing
meaningful work whilst other GRAS, which he seems to have fallen out
with recently and made sideswipes about on various blogs and websites,
users weren't.

http://forums.global-rent-a-scope.co...861&#entry1861

Yet despite his subtle sideswipe about "Varaible Stars - What Is Going
On?" as a sneaky attempt to show off his paper, his paper is dismissed
by AAVSO members who are experts with true publishing track records,
and they are still actively in involved in many projects today, they
just don't brag about every little thing.

In the end it is not about the personalities it is about the science.
If there is no science and amateurs are even dismayed or at least
unimpressed that JAAVSO should publish such things, how are
professionals expected to be any different?