Chat

Originally conceived as a “Thursday only” affair, the AAVSO Internet Chat Room soon grew into an astronomical hangout amongst our members and even the AAVSO staff.

You can log into the chat room via your web browser by clicking here. Alternatively you can log in via one of the many IRC clients. They give you more control over the chat layout and more advanced features. Once you download your client, point it to server irc.aavso.org, port 6667. Some clients want a URL, which would be irc://irc.aavso.org.

ChatZilla - Works well with the Firefox browser. Provides all the usual IRC client features: multiple servers, a built-in list of standard networks, easy searching and sorting of available channels, logging, and DCC chat and file transfers, plus easy customization with JavaScript plug-ins and CSS styling.

XChat is an IRC client that works on many different platforms including Windows, OS X and Unix. The most popular Macintosh client (OS X and Classic) is Ircle.

When you click on the above URL you will be asked for a username. Feel free to use your real name, a nickname ("handle") or your AAVSO observer code. After you click Login you'll see a list of other users online in a column on the right side of your web browser. Introduce yourself by typing in a greeting and click Enter. It is very simple. Help can be found by typing /help.