The American Association AAVSO has now honored Dr. Gerold Holtkamp for his achievements as an amateur astronomer in the field of observation and measurement of variable stars and exoplanets.

The AAVSO (American Association of Variable Star Observers) [1] is an American association for the observation and study of variable stars. The data that the AAVSO uses and publishes comes largely from amateur astronomers around the world, who transmit their observations and evaluations to the association and thus make them available to all interested parties. The AAVSO verifies the data and then publishes it on the platform. Especially in the case of variable stars or those that regularly show novae, it is necessary to measure the brightness of these objects over long periods of time in order to draw conclusions about the physical processes in the corresponding stars. star system. Professional astronomers hardly have this time at their disposal with their telescopes. Therefore, this area of astronomy depends on the cooperation of amateur astronomers.

Such a variable system in the form of a nova was discovered in March 2021 by Japanese amateur astronomer Yuji Nakamura in the constellation Cassiopeia and subsequently studied and measured by many amateur astronomers who observe internationally. Dr. Gerold Holtkamp was one of these amateur astronomers. Together with our astro colleague Dr. Thomas Kunzemann, he carried out many measurements of the brightness of this nova between the beginning of April and mid-May 2021 and submitted his data to the AAVSO. Of course, a detailed report on this can also be found here [3] on kosmos-os.

Now, the AAVSO has honored Gerold's special achievement with an honor for his commitment to observing variable stars and exoplanets.

We congratulate Gerold Holtkamp on his success and are pleased with him that his commitment is not only recognized and appreciated by us!

In this context, we would like to remind you of the expected nova in the star system T CrB in the constellation Corona borealis (the Northern Crown), which, according to the current state of data, is imminent. Of course, we will also try to observe and measure this nova, which recurs with a periodicity of about 80 years.

[1] AAVSO https://www.aavso.org/

[2] Nova V1405 Cas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_Cassiopeiae_2021

[3] kosmos-os https://kosmos-os.de/die-nova-v1405-cas-in-der-cassiopeia/