Book Review: Citizen-Scientists and the Aavso, Advancing Variable Star Astronomy: The Centennial History of the American Association of Variable Star Observers

Abstract

CITIZEN-SCIENTISTS AND THE AAVSO Advancing Variable Star Astronomy: The Centennial History of the American Association of Variable Star Observers. Thomas R. Williams and Michael Saladyga (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 201 1). Pp. xvi + 432. $99. ISBN 9780-521-51912-0.One of the foremost organizations of citizen-scientists in astronomy, the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) has now passed its hundredth year, surviving threats to its existence to establish itself as a significant source of information and research on variable stars. Thomas R. Williams and Michael Saladyga, both of whom have been associated with the AAVSO for many years, have written the centennial history of the organization, drawing extensively upon the archives of the AAVSO and interviews with those central characters in the story who still live. This history covers five main aspects of the development of the AAVSO: variable star observing in the years before the AAVSO, the origin of the organization in the 1910s, its growth when taken under the wing of Harvard College Observatory in the 1920-40s, its struggle to survive as an independent organization when Harvard removed its support in the 1950s, and its expansion since the 1970s in an environment that saw large changes to both the science and technology of variable star astronomy.The authors provide some background on variable star astronomy in general, but only that necessary to put the development of the AAVSO in context.A recurrent subject in the book's discussion of the first half-century of the AAVSO is the organization's changing relationship with Harvard College Observatory and its successive directors. Donald Menzel, the Harvard Observatory's director when the observatory withdrew its support of the AAVSO, is cast as the heavy of the story, but, as Owen Gingerich, writer of the book's foreword, notes, this would prove to be a case of whatever does not kill strengthens. Another continuing theme is the relationship between professional astronomers and the amateur astronomers who have always made up most of the membership of the organization. Except during its founding years, the director of the AAVSO has always been a professional astronomer. Nonetheless, the life of the organization has always depended upon the work of thousands of amateur observers; indeed, amateurs have always played vital roles in running the AAVSO.The role of the AAVSO's founder, William Tyler Olcott, and the question of who actually founded the organization, is considered in detail. Likewise, much attention is given to the ways in which each of the AAVSO's successive directors met the challenges of maintaining morale among its members, scientific productivity worthy of professional attention, and funding sufficient to keep the organization alive. …