real thing now

From: Joe Patterson <*jop_at_astro.columbia.edu*> Date: Thu, 10 Oct 96 06:13:26 EDT · jop_at_astro.columbia.edu

seems to have worked so here goes. you may get another version of this, for
sake of insurance. i won't do that again once I believe in this.

Hi CBAers,                                            October 9, 1996.

     Well, tonight I take my class to Arizona (Braeside) for what
amounts to 11 days of observing, so if the weather holds up we will
have a good western outpost for long daily light curves.  (Dave Harvey
is still down for repairs, though should be up in a couple weeks.) I
thought that was a good occasion for reporting progress and observing
plans.

     Whew, the V1974 Cyg paper was finally accepted and will appear in
the January 1997 PASP (Skillman et al.).  A long haul.  But it was
really greatly improved thanks to all the 1996 coverage and to some
privately communicated Polish data which basically warned us away from
relying too much on our very sparse 1995 data.  So that was really
fine.  Because both the Poles and the Israelis observed the star very
thoroughly in 1995 (when we didn't), the 1993-6 record is now very
good.  We still need occasional coverage in October and November 1996
to define the migrating wave, but can basically relax till next year.

     Dave Skillman has been observing up a storm on RX0028+593.
Awfully handsome 313 s pulsations!  The orbital light curve is more
elusive, but perhaps will emerge by adding data from other longitudes.
At this writing I haven't seen any other data, but I know it's on
Lasse's and Tonny's observing list.  It's a nice star to observe (about
mag 14.5), but realize that the rapid pulsation forces you to keep the
integrations short (60 s or so).

     It looks like "Peg-2" = S193 is finally receiving some attention.
I've seen some coverage from Lasse and Tonny, and Cap'n Bob tells me
he's put together a string of long nights.  This augurs well.  And
because most of this coverage is quite recent, it's the right time for
an extended campaign.  Let's do it!  For the next 11 d, at least, let's
get long runs on S193 in the evening sky.

     Barring any really tempting dwarf-nova outbursts, I'd like to
declare WX Ari the "campaign star" in the morning sky for the next 11
days.  There's a bright star a few arcmin ESE of the variable (visible
in Downes & Shara) which would make a good comparison star.

     There's still evening clean-up work on V1974 Cyg, V Sge, AO Psc,
RX1940-10, and possibly some dwarf novae.  If you know for sure that
someone else is observing at your longitude, you might want to work on
those guys instead.  But remember that some overlap in time series from
different observatories is desirable, allowing much better calibration
(and hence splicing of the time series).

     As you form and execute your observing plans, if possible send
word through the "cba-info" (sorry I forgot the exact name) mail
exploder Jonathan set up a few weeks ago.  This will help other people
juggle their priorities.  I'll be able to read e-mail sent to my home
machine.

     Now let's hope for clear skies..........

joe