KL Dra!

From: Joe Patterson <*jop_at_astro.columbia.edu*> Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 08:40:40 -0400 (EDT) · jop_at_astro.columbia.edu

Dear CBAers,

Just wanted to chip in my enthusiasm for this target.  We've had a devil
time getting it to erupt - only Matt seems to have the touch.  Even a
few nights of photometry, well-timed and all night long, would give that
precise period we desire so much!

Don't forget about that contaminating galaxy, for which you might want to
make some special arrangements after KL Dra fades a bit.

      joe

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 17:01:20 -0400 (EDT)
From: Matt Wood <wood@wd.astro.fit.edu>
To: Joe Patterson <jop@astro.columbia.edu>
Cc: news@cbastro.org
Subject: (cba:news) KL Dra

Joe et al.:

A student and I obtained some data from the SARA Observatory (0.9-m) at
Kitt Peak 2 nights ago on KL Dra (2002-06-12 UT).  Looks like we caught it
just starting to superhump.  If any CBA'ers have large telescopes -- large
enough to reach something roughly 15.5 to 16th magnitude when in high
state -- and are so inclined, more data would be wonderful.

We've got a paper in press in Monthly Notices, which you can find online
at www.astro.fit.edu/wood/mnr_kldra.pdf

I put the data from 020612UT in www.astro.fit.edu/wood/sara152.pdf
The top panel is the raw counts in ADUs (gain is 6.1 if you want photons
detected).  Panel 2 is the 4 comp stars, panel 3 is the target divided by
the comp stars (this is the differential photometry curve), and panel 4 is
the sky (beautiful photometric night).

KL Dra is the most recently discovered AM CVn (helium superhumper), and
appears to be a near clone of CR Boo, with a period of 25.5 minutes.

Cheers,
Matt

--
Matt A. Wood, Associate Professor     Email:  wood@wd.astro.fit.edu
SARA NSF-REU Site Program Director      Tel:  (321) 674-7207
Dept. of Physics and Space Sciences     Fax:  (321) 674-7482
Florida Institute of Technology         WWW:  www.astro.fit.edu/wood
Melbourne, FL  32901-6975, USA     SARA-WWW:  www.astro.fit.edu/sara