  The mysterious 3rd magnitude long period eclipsing binary star system epsilon
Aurigae is predicted to be starting its 2 year eclipse in the late summer of
2009. While this is when the real excitement starts, much is to be learned
before first contact. This paper discusses current observational results that
have accumulated thus far, using photometric monitoring, H-alpha spectroscopy
and with other data sources. Key among the findings are that (1) the low
amplitude light variation quasi-period has decreased significantly over the
past 20 years, and (2) that the duration of egress, eclipse-to-eclipse has been
decreasing, while the duration of total eclipse has been increasing. The
website for the observing campaign is: www.du.edu/~rstencel/epsaur.htm .
