From jop at astro.columbia.edu Fri Nov 14 17:23:45 1997 From: jop at astro.columbia.edu (Joe Patterson) Date: Fri, 14 Nov 1997 17:23:45 -0500 (EST) Subject: (cba:news) stars for the new season Message-ID: <199711142223.RAA12343@tristram.phys.columbia.edu> Dear CBAers, Nov. 13, 1997. Back in the saddle again after 10 days out of town. It's quite wonderful to find an emailbox full of data... which I been digestin'. V592 Cas is putting on a show. The star shows quite a strong superhump at 2.9 hr, and at mag 12.7 and 50-something dec all the northerners can do well with it. I'm having trouble getting folks moving on it (except for Jonathan, who I see every day and therefore can be bugged mercilessly), so I hope you'll step into the breach and get acquainted with this fine star. The really bright star well-placed up there now is TT Ari (mag 10.7). Lasse got one run which suggested but did not prove that the 3.2 hr signal has returned at decent amplitude. Ah shore am pow'f'l eager to know if that's true! TT Ari would be one of our absolute finest stars if the signal would only return. Can some intrepid pioneer out there blaze the trail for us? (Don't be *too* intrepid, though, watch for saturation.) We inaugurated a CBA Most Wanted page at the website, worth looking at. Also, there are results from the PX And campaign, and a submitted paper on AM CVn. Visit us. I just finished analyzing the last year's somewhat sparse data on FO Aqr (the 21 minute star, king of the DQ Hers). The star is falling in the O-C, which is fine, but someone may have cut its parachute, because it's FREEfalling. We really need some more runs now, in the last month of its season, to track that large period change -- and then pick it up again in May. Two-hour runs do the trick on this fine star. He who hesitates is lost. All hemispheres welcome. Jonathan just returned from a run at Braeside, and started our season's coverage of DI UMa. A pretty faint star (15-17.5) but mighty precious to us and definitely a centerpiece of our northern winter observing program. Can you join us in this program? Snapshots welcome too, as well as time series, because the outburst properties are quite poorly known. Think of it as a memorial to the Princess. And, since Carthage has already been destroyed, it's worth urging again that Australites keep the faith on AH Men = H0551-819 = "Men 1". At -81 degrees it certainly keeps the faith on you. joe From jop at astro.columbia.edu Mon Nov 17 07:48:28 1997 From: jop at astro.columbia.edu (Joe Patterson) Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 07:48:28 -0500 (EST) Subject: (cba:news) Ohhhhh!... there's another one Message-ID: <199711171248.HAA17020@tristram.phys.columbia.edu> Dear CBAers, Nov. 17, 1997. Just finished a really nice night's observing in the Big Apple, with a fine display of Leonid meteors flashing overhead. It wasn't the big storm we hoped for, but a few dozen meteors in New York City with a full moon ain't bad. I probably haven't seen that many total meteors in the last 14 years of casual observing here. Not often that we can show meteor showers to our students here! Did the storm occur for observers at other longitudes? There was much sympathy among you for FO Aqr, the freefalling star I fretted about in my last note. Dave South (as opposed to East and West, well-known top guns of our enterprise) and Cap'n Bob sent data, and others indicate they're about to do so. But I extracted timings and saw that while FO Aqr is indeed plummeting rapidly in the O-C, the long-term ephemeris is actually under good control. The recent points are basically like beads on a wire, the way we like 'em. Mmmm. We'll get the O-C on the Web in a day or two. We need a southerner to get timings next May, but can close the books for this year. FO's friend, AO Psc, is actually a much greater need right now. The specs are practically the same: V=13.6, 14 minute variation of ~0.08 mag, 2-hour time series usually sufficient for a timing (3 hr better though). AO is in a *really* bare patch of sky though, the comp-hunting is very poor. See if you can get it! The wires have fallen silent on V592 Cas. Try hard for it, it's a bodaciously bright barn-burnin' superhumpin' star, with a light curve deserving to hang on your mantle. Jonathan's great finding chart on the website. Our Balcony man, Seiichiro Kiyota, asked about CN Ori. Two interests here. The star shows superhumps during outburst (all of 'em), and we'd like to compare the phases among various outbursts. Good for small telescopes, including any perched on balconies. The other interest is quiescence (about 16th mag). Nice large humps there, and we'd like to time a few this year to establish a long-term ephemeris. Need to be patient for both, because the periods are near 4.0 hr. And I'm still hoping for TT Ari. We still don't know for sure if the superhump is back. Need an advance scout, then we'll call out the dogs if warranted. The really good stars for snapshots are: DI UMa (el supremo), RZ LMi, EG Cnc. Actually, as long as I'm making this list, all the WZ Sge stars should get on it too: HV Vir, AL Com, UZ Boo, RZ Leo (the real Leo). Practically nothing is known about short, faint outbursts of these stars. Naturally there is a conventional wisdom, that they don't occur. But it's based on very little data, and that's something we should remedy. Sergei Shugarov and Elena Pavlenko have recently joined our group, our first Russians. I've been reading their papers for years. This is a major, major plus. They know CVs, know photometry, and occupy a nice place on the planet. We even managed, by hook and by crook (mostly crook), to get a CCD camera to them without it disappearing in customs. That augurs well. AH Men = H0551-819 = Men 1 = Tafelberg forever! No reports yet during this season, but a guy can hope can't he? Paddy McGee and Dave South sent some great data from last December. Who will be the hero this year? joe By the way, eventually we want to create an archive where you can fetch all the CBA data on a star. That's still pretty far off I think, but I'll be happy to send it to you in bite-size chunks on your request. Usually I could furnish all data on some particular star. Please ask!