GAIA ALERTS

The European Space Agency's Gaia satellite is measuring the distances to a billion stars in our Galaxy, essentially creating a 3D map of the Milky Way. Gaia will scan the sky repeatedly over its 5 year lifetime, giving multiple observations of the same stars. This will allow us to identify many new variable stars, among which we expect hundreds of Cataclysmic Variables. Some of these will be bright enough to be observed with small telescopes, so if you have a telescope equipped with a CCD camera, you can get involved! If you are interested in contributing your observations, please get in touch via email. You can also follow this link to learn more about Gaia and the UK's contribution to the project.

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Gaia Scan coverage

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