(cba:news) stars of December

[Joe Patterson]

Who's around out there?

It's a wild and wet day in New York, the skies are faucets and
the streets are rivers, but as usual it's gloriously clear in Chile.
And Jonathan just sent me the light curve of EG CNC from last night.
Only 1.6 hr long (sorry the dec's a bear), but an extremely respectable
wave of about 0.12 mag full amplitude.  Definitely a good superhump
candidate.  Just one though; at the very least, superhumps need to be
plural!

Has anyone else been oberving in the last day?  Or will observe?
There's a lotta bad weather over the CBA right now, but in case you
have an opportunity, this would be an awfully nice time to cover our
new friend in Cancer.

            *          *          *          *

And while I've (maybe) got your attention, I'll review the status of
our other campaigns:

PX AND = And 1 = PG0027+26.  I think this merits the highest priority.
We're getting a brief run every night from Chile since I'm nervous
about the success of our northern coverage.  It's really a lovely
target, with large superhumps, eclipses, and a several-day period
whispering "wobble".  Hope you'll get interested...

RR PIC.  Australites only of course.  This has been our main target
from Chile, and it's doing its little humpy thing, along with a
several-day wave which will be of great interest to us.  We'll keep on
it through Feb 1 at least, but earnestly seek help from other
longitudes.

Still getting a steady stream of data on FY Per and RW Tri from the
smaller scopes.  Good stuff.  By the way, can someone get accurate
UBVRI mags on FY Per?  There's some doubt about the CV classification.
John Thorstensen has a 6-hour spectroscopic ("orbital"?) period, but he
describes it as "too good" - lacking the usual noise in CV RVs.  An
accurate UBVRI measurement can often identify CV imitators.

T Pyx and DW UMa have been put on hold for a while - mainly by
competition from RR Pic and EG Cnc.  However, these stars performed so
admirably for us in 1996 that there is no doubt whatever we will
observe them extensively a little later in the season.

Finally, there are our snapshot patrols.  Not our usual thing, but
we're doing them for a few stars where the basic pattern of high and
low states is still very poorly known.  The ones now on our list are AH
Eri, PG0911-066 = Hya 1, VZ Pyx = Pyx 2 = H0857-242, DI UMa, HS Vir,
and V803 Cen.  We won't necessarily pursue these stars seriously, but
would like to get snapshot mags to study (or let's say "help study")
the eruption history.

If this is too much detail, sorry, but go for the caps.  PX AND, RR
PIC, EG CNC.  They be the main stars of early December 1996.


                     joe