(cba:news) New SU UMa discovery from CBA-Italy

[Joe Patterson]

Just when you thought it was safe to go observing again.... Gianluca Masi
and Alessia Cassetti report periodic humps from a newly observed dwarf
nova (with the eruption found earlier tonight by Patrick Schmeer).  The
star is called "Tau 3" in Downes, Webbink, and Shara 1997, and more
officially rendered as RX J0459.7+1926.  It's about 15th mag tonight, and
given the large-amplitude superhumps the Italians are seeing, this is
probably about the maximum brightness.

I was hoping that we could turn fuller attention now to BY Cam (Brian
Martin getting some fine-looking data!) and CN Ori (Robert Rea and James
Hannon, likewise), but I have to admit that this is a good opportunity to
get global coverage on Tau3.  It's a little late for Taurus, but if we
can paste North America (and AU/NZ??) onto Europe, we can effectively get
long runs and hence solve the 24-hr alias problem.  Also, it's an
entirely new toy - gotta give some credit for that!  I think it's
suitable for at least a quickie, a 5-day job unless something really
strange/interesting pops up.

Of course keeping the faith on CN Ori and BY Cam would be plenty
reasonable too.

Takamizawa V85 was officially renamed IY UMa, a pretty dull name for such
a swashbuckling star.  We've been getting some wonderful data at its 17th-
magnitude state ("post-superoutburst", "quiescence", or what-have-you),
and have covered about 30 eclipses now.  Discrete white-dwarf and hot-spot
eclipses appear, and it's possible to measure the radii and luminous
contributions of each.  Fun fun fun.  I'll send out a much fuller thing
on it in about 2 days.


     joe