New targets for November

From: Joe Patterson <*jop_at_astro.columbia.edu*> Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2000 15:14:51 -0500 (EST) · jop_at_astro.columbia.edu

Dear CBAers,

Let's bring our campaign on GD 552 = Cep 1 to an end.  We received great
coverage from John Stull and Dave Toot on the Alfred 32", and Dave East
and Cap'n Bob did their usual thing.  So we have a 60-day campaign, very
well sampled.  The preliminary results are somewhat disappointing: no
obvious superhumps, no stable precession, just an occasional flare and
flickering of course.  We did manage to get a refined orbital period of
0.07127+-0.00005 d.  Time to show this star off the stage for 2000.

Most of our southerners are working on VY Scl.  This is another
complicated star, with signals that are periodic but not particularly
stable.  I think we probably have enough to end the year's coverage.

Fred and Jennie have sent in some data on BW Scl (=RX2353-38), and it
would be great to have more.  I realize this star is a bit faint and the
season is maybe a bit late - but see what you can do.  Otherwise, the two
good stars for southern coverage are TW Pic and RR Pic.  Enjoy those
negative decs!

In the north, I recommend PX And and BZ Cam.  The first few light curves
of BZ Cam have arrived, and show no obvious periodic signals, but a few
nights of long coverage should really nail this down.  PX And is an
eclipsing star which has shown superhumps in the past, and might even have
them all the time; anyway, the simultaneous presence of eclipses and
superhumps should allow us to map the physical origin of the superhump
light in the binary.

So:  north : PX And, BZ Cam
     south:  BW Scl, TW Pic, RR Pic

       joe