Re: GSC 3493-1324 -- what's next?

[Michael Koppelman <lolife@bitstream.net>]

Thank you for bringing this up because it is bugging me.

We "found" a couple of new EA binaries this weekend. We just decided 
that the astronomy world will not be told about them. So if you study 
EA's for a living or are trying to understand relative populations of 
binaries, there are two data points you will not have.

I don't get why that is good. The IBVS should publish every new "just 
another variable" so it get referenced in SIMBAD and becomes part of 
the big, bad database. Every one that we dismiss as "not special" is a 
gap in the database. We'll never have such a database because we are 
all deciding what is not special and dooming them to be rediscovered 
over and over.

I maintain that when we figure out the type, period, amplitude and 
color of a binary system, it should be reported in a way that gets it 
referenced in SIMBAD. That is my opinion. From what I can tell, most 
people disagree with me.

Cheers,
Michael Koppelman


On Jun 6, 2004, at 11:41 PM, Arne Henden wrote:

> In this "brave new world", the problem is that journals are flooded
> with new variable stars.  They are rightfully requesting detailed
> analysis in order to publish Yet Another Variable.  So just datamining
> and getting photometry for a given star from NSVS/TASS/ASAS is not
> sufficient.
>   This further means that anyone starting a photometry project to 
> follow
> one of these stars has to be prepared to either do the analysis (such
> as WD modelling for binaries), or else find a collaborator.  (It is
> usually wiser to find the collaborator before doing much photometry.)
>   Hard facts of life.  Self-publishing through something like the wiki
> is probably the simplest alternative for the near future, but some
> thought is due from the professionals as to how to handle miscellaneous
> datasets for long-term archival and acknowledgement.