Dr. Joseph Patterson will lead a world-wide collaboration of professionals and amateurs to obtain continuing observations of cataclysmic variable stars. These objects consist of a white dwarf star with a close companion which is transferring mass onto the white dwarf via an accretion disk. These objects can exhibit large, irregular, and rapid changes in brightness (hence the term "cataclysmic"). Depending on the type of the companion and its proximity to the white dwarf, the system can have complicated changes in the amount of and spectrum of the emitted light, from which much can be learned about the nature of the accretion disk and the rate of mass transfer.
Over the last ten years, Dr. Patterson has assembled a worldwide network of small photometric telescopes, called the Center for Backyard Astrophysics. Through this network, astronomers are able to study periodic phenomena in unprecedented detail. This network of (mostly) amateur astronomers is now a major element in the research interface of amateur and professional astronomers. During this project, new efforts will expand the observations beyond the realm of cataclysmic variables. This program represents a symbiosis of the amateur's traditional interest in discovery with the physicist's traditional interest in experiments leading to confrontation with theory. With the widespread closing of small telescopes at professional observatories, this type of collaboration is necessary for the continuing study of periodic and aperiodic phenomena in cataclysmic variables.
