Report From the epsilon Aurigae Campaign in Greece

We report the results of the Greek campaign to observe the 2009-2011 eclipse of epsilon Aurigae. We present the activities organized by the Hellenic Amateur Astronomy Association (HAAA) in order to publicize the event and to provide the necessary information and tools to both first-time and experienced observers. Although visual observations were the core method, we proposed and experimented with various techniques. In total, data from 21 observers were acquired combining different techniques: 302 visual, 95 CCD, and 11 DSLR observations, and 5 low-resolution spectra.

We were able to construct the light curve of the eclipse and extract some interesting results, in agreement with previous studies. The system's V-magnitude drops from ~3.0 to ~ 3.8 in 131 ± 21 days. The ingress date is estimated around the MJD 55087 ± 15d (August 12, 2009) and the system is exiting eclipse after the MJD 55797 ± 15d (August 23, 2011). We estimate the duration of the 2009-2011 eclipse to be 710 ± 21 days. A rather possible trend for mid-eclipse brightening exists only in the CCD/DSLR data, which show oscillations of 0.07 magnitude amplitude.