Month of the dragon

From: Joe Patterson <*jop_at_astro.columbia.edu*> Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2005 14:27:58 -0400 (EDT) · jop_at_astro.columbia.edu

Dear CBAers,

Sorry to have been so quiet lately.  Holed away in a little cabin in
Vermont, with no hope of email access... or even a telephone.  But I'm
back in action now!

I basically analyzed all the data on V345 Pav and MV Lyr, the currently
popular targets du jour.  The data on V345 Pav, from Berto and Greg Bolt,
show a beautiful orbital light curve, but none of the periodic signals
which are our bread and butter.  So scratch that one.  MV Lyr is
definitely an odd case, occasionally breaking into 3-hour humps, but not
showing any persistent period (i.e. anything hanging together for more
than a few cycles).  Scratch that one too - we may or may not have learned
anything useful, but the coverage so far is probably as good as it's not
going to get.  Time to move on to other stars, and to finish the analysis.

In the far north, may I commend three stars in Draco:

IX Dra and MN Dra, for the reasons I stated earlier - in a previous
message.  For these stars, we'd like snapshot mags too, not just
differential time-series as is our usual wont

And a new Draco entrant: HS1813+61 ("Dra"), reputed to be at Po-0.148 d
although really with very little known about it.

In the south, I recommend V1494 Aql (technically north, but still...).
Bob Rea's recent data shows that the light curve looks more like a regular
eclipse... and we need one more season to reach critical mass for our
seasonal light-curve study.

Then there's V1327 Aql, with an outburst - maybe the very first outburst
ever observaed - announced by Rod Stubbings.  No knowledge of that star.
Whatever you learn about it, you'll be the first!

more tonight/tomorrow.

joe