(cba:news) New stars for February

[Joe Patterson]

Dear CBAers,

Some news on individual stars...

Thanks to Fred and Jennie's determination, we now have an orbital timing
for T Pyx.  I didn't think it would come out so quickly, but it did; the
average waveform, given sufficient data, is remarkably stable.  We can
forget Mister TPyx till next year (unless it erupts!)  Staying southern
...TW Pic should still be minded for another 2-3 weeks, and RR Pic is also
good for another month.  As usual, it's a good idea to stay faithful to
one star.  Slightly later in the night, there's SW Sex, which will be
mainly our March target, but it's a good time to start it up.

In the north, many people are having trouble with RZ LMi at quiescence,
where it now resides (unless it just went into a short outburst, which is
certainly possible).  I guess if your data is very noisy on this star,
then it's best to WAIT till the next superoutburst (calculated to be
JD 951+-2) and then cover it.  That would accomplish one of our two main
goals (after sampling a bunch of SOs), to see if the superhumps remember
their phase.  Folks with the bigger scopes and/or darker skies can then do
the quiescent light curve.  Here are the two stars I recommend instead:
BH Lyn (previously described) and BP Lyn (also known as PG0859+415 and
KUV0859+415 and Lyn 1).  As usual, select one and observe it to
smithereens.

   joe