KR Aur, and Ursa Magna

From: Joe Patterson <*jop_at_astro.columbia.edu*> Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 05:31:00 -0500 · jop_at_astro.columbia.edu

18.4, 18.8, and an earlier report estimated 19.4. Sounds like it's 
auditioning for the role of the next TT Ari.  If I could find someone to 
bet with (my wife is strangely uninterested), I'd wager the light curve 
looks like what we've been staring at for the last few months.

More then a little speculative!  But until the first long, flat light 
curve shows up, I'll indulge my fantasy.  There is, you see, this 
"controversy" now over whether VY Scl stars become very luminous 
supersoft X-ray sources at quiescence.  Personally I think it's merely 
the result of one bad paper, which attracted much attention and was 
cited approvingly many times... but the existence of a reflection effect 
(off the orbiting secondary) allows one to MEASURE the bolometric 
luminosity of the WD (and, I expect, put the silly business to rest).

BTW just to add to Jerry's note on the SAS conference at Big Bear:

I have most of May reserved on the 1.3 m MDM telescope (on Kitt Peak),
and a week on the 2.4 m at the end.  We'd especially love to have good 
foreign representation at Big Bear, so I'll sweeten the deal for the 
internationals by adding a few nights of observing at Kitt Peak.  We 
won't let you look for the Easter bunny... but other than that, you can 
use the telescope any way you want (pretty pictures as well as CVs).  No 
telescope operators, authority figures, similar intrusions to get in the 
way.  Decent living quarters, so you can likely stay there.  I hope 
that'll lure some extra internationals.  If you time your visit with my 
travel schedule, you can probably add the extra travel leg at no cost 
(I'll rent a van to travel Tucson->Big Bear and back).

These SAS meetings - especially if you also attend the consecutively 
scheduled Riverside ATM conference a few miles away - remind me of my 
first visit to Toyland a few weeks before Christmas.  American 
Astronomical Society meetings are pretty similar, though there's not a 
lot of toys to buy (unless you have tends of millions of USD).  One of 
those is scheduled for Boston in May 2011; I believe that one coincides 
with a AAVSO meeting, and will include a special session on 
professional-amateur collaboration. We'll invade that conference too.

joe

Jerry Foote wrote:
> Tom,
> 
> I am measuring it at 18.8. The clouds have cleared here so I will stay on it
> until 12:30 UT. Running in Clear 2x2 binning and 90 sec on the 24".
> 
> Mike, thanks for the AAVSO chart link.
> 
> Jerry Foote
> Center for Backyard Astrophysics-Utah
> jfoote@scopecraft.com
> 
> 
> 