Welcome back to Space Explr, we have episode 50 and a great guest, Rod Stubbings is an Amateur Astronomer who is observing variable stars. His first observation of a variable star was in May 1993. On June 8, 2002, his 9th year of observing, he recorded 100,000 visual observations of variable stars being the first Australian observer to do so. On January 24, 2012, he made his 200,000th variable star observation which was achieved in 18 years and 8 months. He believes only the seventh person in the world to reach this milestone. October 9, 2015, his 250,000th visual variable star observation was recorded! This has taken 22 years and 10 months.
Just five other observers worldwide have made over 250,000 observations of variable stars are Albert Jones (New Zealand), Dannie Overbeek (South Africa), Hiroaki Narumi, Taichi Kato (Japan), and Gary Poyner (England). October 6, 2018, a special observation was made on the star AR Pav which was his 300,000th visual variable star observation. Officially the fourth person to reach 300K in variable star astronomy. This milestone has been achieved in 25 years and 5 months with an annual average of 11,800 observations per year which exceeds that of my predecessors, Albert Jones (New Zealand), Hiroaki Narumi, and Taichi Kato (Japan).