(cba:news) stars of the solstice...

[Joe Patterson]

Dear CBAers,

Sorry to have been awfully quiet about targets.  Things have been busy 
with end-of-semester, KPNO observing tun, microlens, etc.

We've been getting pretty good coverage of SDSS0407-06 = Eri, and have 
again found the negative superhump which popped up last year.  It may 
well be a PERMANENT permanent superhumper.  The trouble is that it's 
sometimes a touch faint for our little scopes, and it ramps up and down 
pretty fast by 2 magnitudes or so (16-18).  This complicates the 
analysis a lot.  So I'm inclined to steer away from this difficult star.
A much brighter star which seems to exemplifies the same trends (longish 
period and permanent negative superhump, and also crossing the meridian 
near local midnight) is V1193 Ori.  Let's do that one for the next month!

North, south, east, west... it's a star for everyone.

In the north, I recommend now FS Aur, V405 Aur, and BG CMi... and 
RX0636+35=Gem.  The latter is kinda tough, the others should be easy enough.

In the south, I recommend BW Scl (still) and V1193 Ori... and BG CMi if 
you don't mind venturing a little out-of-hemisphere.

joe