(cba:news) stars for Jan 2007

[Joe Patterson]

Dear CBAers,

Time for a changing of the (CV) guard.

Four stars are done for the year.
(1) V1212 Tau - we have enough now to define Psh (Jerry Foote, Tut Campbell).
    Now we'll retire and wait for big glass to define Porb at quiescence.
(2) Var Cam 06 (OT0557+68).  Same story.  Very extensive coverage by Bob
    Koff, Dave Messier, Jerry, and the Europeans (David Boyd, Tonny, Arto,
    and Pierre de Ponthiere). Nice Psh of 0.05348 d.
(3) V1193 Ori.  Not much coverage this year... but no periodic signals.
    Last year there were several very powerful signals... so let's not
    invest more in the star now.
(4) AH Pic.  Very fine coverage by Greg, Berto, Jennie, Bob Rea, Bill Allen.
    And the result is an obvious signal at 0.14095(5) d.  That's good
    enough - let's declare victory and withdraw!

Eri = SDSS0407-06.  Whew!  What an interesting star.  We've accumulated a
lot of coverage, but the star ramps up and down quite rapidly with a 2 mag
amplitude... plus there are deep eclipses, plus the period is long, plus
it's often very faint.  Plus the season isn't quite right.  So I officially
declare this one dead for the year, with a heavy heart.

January-March is the glorious season for DQ Her stars, and most of 'em are
pretty bright, so you can track the pulses pretty well.  Here's a few very
worth doing right now, partly to track the pulse period changes:

BG CMi 0729+10
WX Pyx 0833-22 (17 but very sparsely observed)
DW Cnc 0758+16
HT Cam 0757+63 (18)
Swift 0732-13 = "Pup" (no chart, but we'll fetch one)

And here are other stars for which we need LONG coverage:
FS Aur (0547+28) - presently V=16 
T Pyx (0902-30)  - V=15.1
RR Pic (0635-62) - V=12, good for bad conditions

And here are new DQ Hers which we have just started campaigns:
Lyn = SDSS0804+51
Gem = RX0704+26

There's the menu.  Pick a star or two and keep the faith on 'em - almost
always the best procedure on these guys!

joe