new month, new targets!

From: Joe Patterson <*jop_at_astro.columbia.edu*> Date: Sun, 30 Jun 2002 12:15:13 -0400 (EDT) · jop_at_astro.columbia.edu

Dear CBAers,

The arrival of a paycheck reminds me of a new month approaching.  (I'm
kind of a julian-date guy.)  Time for a revolution in CBA targets.

V877 Ara is out of outburst, LX Ser is a little out of season, and KL Dra
is out of unconfused photons.  All decent reasons to drop these stars from
our list.

We now have precision ephemerides for V795 Her and RX1643+34.  These were
superb campaigns.  Just writing the paper up... couldn't have done any
better!  What a pleasure that was, and is.  But no need to continue these
campaigns.

V442 Oph needs another week or two of coverage, especially from the south.
Turns out that Jerry Foote, I assume dodging forest fires, has been
getting very regular observations.  They're necessarily short from the
north, so we're still kinda sparse on long runs (despite one 10-hour run
from Berto).  So keep the faith.

The northern object I REALLY want to promote now is V533 Her.  It's
perfectly placed, about 14.5 mag, and likely has a shiny new superhump.
It does have a star of equal brightness 10" away, so some of you will need
to fuss over that circumstance.  Short exposures might help a lot.  Also,
there's a small-amplitude signal at 63 seconds in this star.  Those of you
with bigger scopes might want to try resolving it - needs a total cycle
time (exposure plus readout) of less than 20 seconds.  The main interest
is the superhumps that are likely to be present near 3.5 hours, and a
10-minute quasi-periodic signal (of unknown origin).

Cap'n Bob and Lew Cook have started us up on V1494 Aql.  That takes care
of an early-season point.  We can now afford to wait a while before a very
intense campaign.  But both V1494 Aql and V603 Aql are pretty damn good
targets right now, so if either of them suits you (they're pretty bright),
then let 'er rip!

         joe