Re: [TASS] publication of variable stars

[Tom Droege <droege@wwa.com>]

My greatest concern is that we do the science right.  I think we should
sumarize all the discoveries on the home page.  At least we should have
pointers to lists like Glen's and Mike's.  By now, I think that most people
working on variable stars know that we are there.  At this point, tass is a
work in progress.  Everything is not ready for publication.  

Some may be concerned that others "scoop" us and announce a discovery as
their own that was in our data.  Well, that is OK with me.  I figure we
should just keep working to get it right, then from time to time release
"finished" lists.  That is data that we have done everything we can think
of to make it right.  

I am happy to insert these data lists into any archive that will accept
them.  I am also happy to label the lists in any way that will make them
most useful to science.  It is enough for me that there is some way to
identify that the data came from tass.  We will keep our own archive that
is always a work in progress.  

If the Mark IVs work out, the tass data base will be a very important place
for variable star workers to look.  "What other places to archive it" is a
question for the professionals.  I figure we make them want to solve the
archive problem by doing a good job.  Or we just take over as "the" place
to look because of all our good data.  

Tom Droege

At 10:05 AM 9/7/99 -0400, you wrote:
>  Yoshida-san brings up a good point:
>
>> In the case of MisV objects, we first reported the
>> discovery to VSNET mailing list. Then we write papers for IBVS.
>> How about the objects discovered by TASS?
>>
>> Because this object was already discovered by TASS team, I do not think
>> it is proper to attach the new MisV number for it. I am very afraid that
>> if you will not publish your new variable stars, nobody will know about
>> it, in spite of the two independent discoveries of the variable feature
>> by TASS and MISAO.
>
>  I can't speak officially for TASS, because there is no "official"
>leadership; we all work on the project in our spare time, according
>to our interest.  While this is in some ways one of the strengths
>of the TASS project, it can also be a weakness.  In the case of
>publishing results, it _is_ a problem.
>
>  Glenn Gombert has published a few of his discoveries to the
>IBVS (Information Bulletin on Variable Stars).  Yoshida-san indicates
>that this is one of the mechanisms chosen by the MISAO project.
>I think that it is a very good idea for TASS workers who notice
>variable stars to write up a brief report and send it to the IBVS.
>Here's their URL:
>                     http://www.konkoly.hu/IBVS/IBVS.html
>
>(I noticed that on September 7, 1999, their WWW server was down due
>to a hardware failure).
>
>  Those who want to write reports for the IBVS can go to the
>IBVS site and peruse several issues to learn about the expected
>format, content and style of papers.  I would suggest that first-time
>writers create a draft, make it available via FTP or WWW, and send
>a message to the TASS mailing list asking for comments and feedback.
>
>  A question for Yoshida-san and everyone else: it would be best
>if all material published in IBVS was recorded in one central
>catalog or database ... so that astronomers could make a single
>search to check for known variables.  The General Catalog of Variable
>Stars (GCVS) used to fulfill this role, but I don't think it can
>keep up with recent discoveries.  If all the information could be
>entered into SIMBAD, one could simply search there --- but I am not
>sure how to submit information to them.  Moreover, I believe they
>would much rather receive one list of 100 stars all at once than
>100 lists of 1 star each.
>
>  So -- can anyone suggest a good mechanism for reporting
>variable-star discoveries, one which allows others to access them
>quickly and easily, even years later?
>
>                                           Michael Richmond
>
>