NOTE EARLIER DATE THAN USUAL

Not every star is as peaceful as our Sun.  About a dozen objects per year fo "nova" in our own galaxy.  Each nova is unique; some rise and fall in brightness quickly, some take years to return to their original brightness. All, however, involve enormous outbursts of energy, sufficient to kill off mankind if a nova occurred near our Solar System.  The American Association of Variable Star Observer's (AAVSO) has been keeping records of novae for nearly a century, and the talk will highlight some of the fun ones as well as giving some observing hints.

Arne Henden is the Director of the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO), a scientific non-profit organization in Boston dedicated to the study of variable stars. He obtained his PhD from Indiana University in 1985, and has been employed at Goddard Space Flight Center, The Ohio State University, and the U.S. Naval Observatory (Flagstaff, Arizona), before joining the AAVSO.