Basic Variable Star Observing—An Addict’s Story

Glenn Chaple, Author and Amateur Astronomer

Glenn has been an avid amateur astronomer since the summer of 1963 when a high school friend showed him Saturn through his telescope. He received a BS degree in astronomy from the UMass Amherst in 1969, and then worked for two years at the Alice G. Wallace Planetarium in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, while receiving a Master’s Degree in Science Education from Fitchburg State College. From 1974 until his retirement in 2006, he was a middle school science teacher – first in the Fitchburg school system, then at Groton-Dunstable. 

Glenn co-authored, with Terence Dickinson and Vic Costanzo, the Edmund Mag 6 Star Atlas, and wrote the books Exploring With a Telescope (Franklin Watts – 1988) and The Outer Planets (Greenwood Press – 2009). He contributed chapters on double stars to David Eicher’s Deep-sky Observing With Small Telescopes (Enslow Publishers – 1989) and James Muirden’s Sky Watchers Handbook (W.H. Freeman – 1993). Between 1977 and 1987, Glenn wrote a column on double stars for Deep Sky Magazine. From 1982 until 1994, he handled the “What’s Up?” column for the children’s astronomy magazine Odyssey. Since 2002, Glenn has authored the monthly “Observing Basics” column for Astronomy. 

Mr. Chaple has been a member of the Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston since 1980, serving as President from 2015-2018., The same year, he joined the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO), and has forwarded more than 79,000 variable star estimates to that organization. In 2006, Glenn joined the Astronomical League.