weird results on S Gem

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Sat, 05/01/2021 - 15:37

Have a look at this from the LPV digest!

S GEM (M) 133(4) 117(5) <135(6) <139(7) 141(8) 144(9) 141(14) 135(18) 114(23) BTY,GSED,KHL,POX,TUB,TYGA

The identity of the observer should remain unknown here, but the obs on 5th, 6th and 8th were all by him/her. It needs to be pointed out (graciously and politely, obviously!) that this is gross over-observing. Personally I think 1 obs per star per month is sufficient for most red stars. There also seems to be some mis-identification going on.

Affiliation
Vereniging Voor Sterrenkunde, Werkgroep Veranderlijke Sterren (Belgium) (VVS)
Hi Pox, In the past I often…

Hi Pox, In the past I often pointed the Aavso to observers like this one who are polluting the lightcurve. I never had a decent response.  These are observers who only want the numbers, not quality. One of the reasons I stopped observing. If you look for it, you wil find a lot of these. 

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Weird photometry

Looking at S Gem with LCG-2 you have several problems.  Outliers and the object is somewhat under-observed.   If you download the data it is very easy to filter out by observer ID those that you the data analyst decide are outliers. 

I don't think it is a good idea to stop observing an object just because the "light curve" is contaminated by others.  There needs to be good observers observing so the outliers may be detected and filtered.  The AAVSO database contains raw, unfiltered data as far as I know.  The light curve analyst should download the data and be doing any filtering based on their requirements. 

Perhaps an AAVSO mentor could contact to help guide them to what is a good observing rate and any other related issues.  There may be simple reasons that could be solved with a contact.