falling leaves, and rising stars

From: Joe Patterson <*jop_at_astro.columbia.edu*> Date: Fri, 27 Nov 1998 13:25:44 -0500 (EST) · jop_at_astro.columbia.edu

Dear CBAers,                                              26 Nov 1998

The coverage of WX Cet has been excellent (thanks to Lasse and Jerry and
Cap'n Bob; of course it would be great to have Pacific observations too!), 
and I think the campaign should be ended as the star has faded greatly.
Definitely its finest and most favorably timed outburst. Cindy Taylor 
has started a spectroscopy run, and will I think cover the spectral 
evolution through snapshot observations.  

Nobody seems to like FO Aqr and AO Psc except Jerry Gunn. This amazes me, 
since their light curves could hang in art galleries.  But "there's no 
accounting for taste".  There is accounting for the solar position, which
has become too unfavorable, so we'll retire these stars until 1999.

V592 Cas has had a fine year but I think I'm ready to usher it off the
stage.  Gotta make room for the new toys.  Thanks to Dave Harvey for
the rush of excellent light curves at season's end.

TT Ari is hardly a new toy, but this year's coverage is a little weak and
December is the time to fix that.  Very good target for small-scope 
borealites.

Another good one is FY Per.  A mighty strange star.  It's not even 
clear that it's a cataclysmic - the Porb is plausible at 6 hr, but 
there's little photometric activity.  We can, however, push the limit
for periodic signals very far, since the flickering is so low.  It's
around 12th magnitude and tempting.

For slightly bigger telescopes, WX Ari is the target of choice right
now.  We hope to continue that campaign through December.  Except when
DI UMa erupts - then it becomes the northern target of choice for as 
long as it's bright.

In the far south, AH Men (=Men 1 = H0551-819 = H0616-818) is now back
as a fine target, and so is RR Pic.  Both quite bright.  Let 'em know
we know they're out there.  And we're about to start the season on TV
Col - a very good target for southern coverage, but watch out for its
nearby companion, which has to be cleanly excluded or included in the
data reduction.

Last time I gave a list of stars which should be watched carefully for
outburst, and rocketed to the top of the list if they do erupt.  Namely:

KK Tel             RZ Leo              AO Oct
BR Lup             FS Aur              CP Eri (special attention!)
J2353-3851         BC UMa              VX For
V4140 Sgr          GD 552 = Cep 1      BZ UMa

No one actually said anything, but I hope some of you are looking.

Big changes lie ahead for the CBA.  Jonathan and I will be moving next 
summer to the Biosphere-2 site near Tucson, where we will operate UNIVERSE 
semester, a 4-month intensive program in astronomy and astrophysics for 
college students.  We will have the usual fleet of small telescopes, and
probably a 24" capable of semi-robotic observation.  It would be nice to
deploy the latter in a regular program of time-series photometry (esp. 
during the other 8 months).  I'd be very interested in hearing from any 
of you who think they might be able to play some role in this enterprise!
You can learn more about Bio-2 at www.bio2.edu, and a UNIVERSE SEMESTER
website will soon grow at cba.phys.columbia.edu/universe.

                              joe