stars for november

From: Joe Patterson <*jop_at_astro.columbia.edu*> Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 08:17:45 -0500 (EST) · jop_at_astro.columbia.edu

Dear CBAers,

I'm so sorry to have been so quiet for so long.  Had a few health
worries... and then most of the country (certainly by land mass anyway)
had a bad day yesterday.

So here's my take on our little celestial friends.

NSV 907 is certainly a first-priority target for all northerners.
Transiting near midnight and basically a virgin superhumper - definitely
red meat for CBAers!  I guess too far north (+27) for southerners, with
the possible exception of Neil Butterworth.  Worth making a big effort for
a couple weeks.

     Var79 Peg has been observed by some of you, and I'm not so well
informed about it.  I'd like to see another posting or two, and ask you:
is it worth trying to squeeze in an evening campaign on this?  It's
declined a bit, so I think maybe not... but you tell me.  Another star
with not much known about it.

     I kept ASAS0025+12 in the mix for a long time, hoping Porb would
eventually jump out of the light curve and say boo.  It never did (though
I haven't finished the count... uh, I mean the analysis).  So I think it's
time to cede that one to the big scopes.  Should be a very nice paper
though!

     We've gotten enough on CM Phe for the year, so we can retire that
one.  Three southern targets now suitable for a campaign:

1. ES Cet.  We've yet to see it erupt, or superhump.  If it did either, it
would be big news.  But in any case, it has an orbital modulation at its
10 min binary period.  If you can handle the faintness (17) within the
required short exposure (<80 s), it's a good target.  Tracking that Porb
over the next few years is likely constrain the angular momentum loss
mechanism of the binary.

2. AH Men. One of our favorites. We're waiting one more season to
unleash the data on an unsuspecting world, and that season is beginning.
Plenty bright for any lunar phase, and at -81 deg should be available to
all (depending on trees maybe).  It has a nasty friend about 3-4 arcsec
away, so use large apertures to render the contamination as constant as
possible.  You could also try a blue filter to reduce the contamination.
That would reduce it, but could give me a tough problem in combining
blue and unfiltered data.  Unfiltered is the safer way to go, at least
for now.

3. BO Cet. We haven't observed this one in 5 years... and need about two
weeks of coverage to nail down the long-term ephemeris.  Might be a good
time to do it.

Observations of the DQ Her stars are always nice to tidy up the ephemeris:
V405 Aur, FO Aqr, and definitely AO Psc.

So prime northern and southern are NSV 907 and AH Men.  Fire away!

joe