From jop at astro.columbia.edu Thu Mar 1 10:08:28 2001 From: jop at astro.columbia.edu (Joe Patterson) Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2001 10:08:28 -0500 (EST) Subject: (cba:news) The CBA sells its soul? Message-ID: Dear CBAers, Before anyone grumbles too much about advertising in this hallowed forum, I wanted to sing some praises to Hellier's book. This is what I've been hoping for all along, a CV book written for advanced amateurs and undergraduates and yet not shunning physics. Very digestible. Some of you already own Warner's 1995 opus on the subject; an amazing book, now called "Big Book" or "The Bible" by those of us in The Biz... but sort of like taking a drink at a fire hydrant. I recommend Hellier's book very highly, in fact I just ordered 30 copies! (Oh, and I think he might say some warm fuzzy things about the CBA, too.) joe From jop at astro.columbia.edu Sat Mar 10 07:10:19 2001 From: jop at astro.columbia.edu (Joe Patterson) Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 07:10:19 -0500 (EST) Subject: (cba:news) stars Message-ID: Dear CBAers, Lacking a telescope here on the Great White Way, I can't tell for sure. But the great celestial clockworks suggests that RZ LMi should have popped into superoutburst a day or two ago, or maybe today/tomorrow. Can you verify? Maximum light is about 14.6. Let's cover this supermax as well. Re other stars, no one has picked up the challenge on BP Lyn. Likely to be a great target. Heading south, Fred and Jennie have been observing SW Sex, but the results are somewhat disappointing. A very good orbital light curve, nice sharp and deep eclipses, but no observable superhumps. Probably should be discontinued since the far-southern target, AH Men, has been quite wonderful: powerful superhumps plus an orbital signal, plus the beat frequency (which probably signifies the actual wobble of that poor ol' tortured accretion disk). So AH Men is the southern target of choice for about the next month. joe From jop at astro.columbia.edu Wed Mar 21 17:59:23 2001 From: jop at astro.columbia.edu (Joe Patterson) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 17:59:23 -0500 (EST) Subject: (cba:news) CR Boo and other stars for late March Message-ID: Dear CBAers, CR Bootis may have greeted yesterday's arrival of northern spring with a fresh (super)outburst. It's not that easy to tell since the supers in this star are only a little brighter than the normal outbursts. But I'd bet this one is a super. Somewhat disappointing, because our South African observing run is still 2 weeks off, and I'd hoped to catch a super then. But with a CBA blitzkrieg we could nail the (likely) powerful superhumps now (as in TONIGHT, wherever you are)... and then study the residual weak superhumps that appear to trail far, far beyond the supermax itself. So for all latitudes and longitudes, let's go for this! You can read about our 1996 campaign in PASP 109, 1100. We can do much better this year. RZ LMi is back at minimum. Except for the bigscopers, we can leave it alone for another week or so, when a fresh super is expected. DW UMa... a good northern target, but I think worth deferring till CR Boo speaks its piece. AH Men... Robert Rea and Maria Marsh continue with a very effective (though so far solitary) campaign. I can't urge suspension of this great data resource, which is defining the star's many periods so clearly. But if there were some way to do that AND CR Boo, that would be mighty fine! joe From jop at astro.columbia.edu Sat Mar 24 14:48:49 2001 From: jop at astro.columbia.edu (Joe Patterson) Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 14:48:49 -0500 (EST) Subject: (cba:news) CR Boo and false prophets Message-ID: Dear CBAers, Well, ship the oars, muffle the alarms, tell the troops to stand down, etc. You can even show the Moon to your neighbors (don't, however, go back to bed.) Fred and Jennie and Brian Martin have observed CR Boo and it seems to be in its familiar cycling state. No super. So that lowers its priority - we'll wait till our South African run begins before cranking up (we'll have round-the-world coverage then). V803 Cen, now that's the peachy southern target now, with AH Men the other good one. Flashing great superhumps as always; I can't wait to see how the damn thing will do when we have the multiple longitudes going strong on it. (We still have the South American problem though; anyone know a good solution?). The new northern "campaign" star is SU UMa. This one is being targeted by one of the X-ray telescopes for repeated observation over 5 weeks starting tonight. If you have the capability of brief time series to establish the star's brightness, you'd be doing an excellent service to science by doing that. In general, they (this is being run by some British astronomers, Andy Beardmore and Darren Baskill) don't need long observations. But if the present outburst (it just jumped into one) is a super, then our usual long time series will be just fine and quite productive. As for whether there will be any correlation with the X-rays, well, that's the point of doing the experiment. So it's a possibility... check that baby for superhumps. Best northern targets are now DW UMa and RZ LMi. joe From jop at astro.columbia.edu Sun Mar 25 10:59:59 2001 From: jop at astro.columbia.edu (Joe Patterson) Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 10:59:59 -0500 (EST) Subject: (cba:news) here we go again... Message-ID: Oops, SU UMa is back to quiescence - so it wasn't a super. Still a good target for short time series to compare with the record of X-ray brightness. But not the long time series which is our bread and butter. For the latter, it's DW UMa and RZ LMi for the borealites. joe From jop at astro.columbia.edu Mon Mar 26 18:07:16 2001 From: jop at astro.columbia.edu (Joe Patterson) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 18:07:16 -0500 (EST) Subject: (cba:news) IR Com erupting? Message-ID: Dear CBAers, Mike Simonsen sent in a report of IR Com (=S 10932) erupting to 14.4. Very interesting if true, since the deep eclipses will give good diagnostics of the bright disk. Can anyone confirm or deny? J2000 coords 12 39 32.0 +21 08 06. Very cool target for time series if it has indeed erupted. But March has thrown a few fizzlers at us.............. joe From jop at astro.columbia.edu Tue Mar 27 08:55:39 2001 From: jop at astro.columbia.edu (Joe Patterson) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 08:55:39 -0500 (EST) Subject: (cba:news) IR Com fizzle, RZ LMi sizzle, (SU UMa) RXTE drizzle Message-ID: Fiddlesticks. Dave Skillman's light curve showed the usual 2.1 hour eclipses of a star around 16th magnitude. Quiescent, strike it from the rolls. John Stull found RZ LMi erupting again last night in a likely fresh supermax. SU UMa is definitely at minimum, but the X-ray campaign is on and your strictly simultaneous observations will be of very high value (should allow 20 min either side to account for gremlins). Here's the detailed schedule... Southern campaigns on AH Men and V803 Cen, yesyesyesathousandtimesyes! joe Day 089 is MAR 30 (UT). GOODTIME: 03:50:00 (228541804) to 04:23:00 (228543784) TOTAL_GT: 1.98 ksec Day 089 is MAR 30 (UT). GOODTIME: 13:17:00 (228575824) to 13:53:00 (228577984) TOTAL_GT: 2.16 ksec Day 090 is MAR 31 (UT). GOODTIME: 03:27:00 (228626824) to 04:01:00 (228628864) TOTAL_GT: 2.04 ksec Day 090 is MAR 31 (UT). GOODTIME: 13:06:00 (228661564) to 13:36:00 (228663364) TOTAL_GT: 1.8 ksec Day 091 is APR 1 (UT). GOODTIME: 00:16:00 (228701764) to 00:49:00 (228703744) TOTAL_GT: 1.98 ksec Day 091 is APR 1 (UT). GOODTIME: 12:56:00 (228747364) to 13:23:00 (228748984) TOTAL_GT: 1.62 ksec Day 092 is APR 2 (UT). GOODTIME: 01:48:00 (228793684) to 02:18:00 (228795484) TOTAL_GT: 1.8 ksec Day 092 is APR 2 (UT). GOODTIME: 11:09:00 (228827344) to 11:34:00 (228828844) TOTAL_GT: 1.5 ksec Day 093 is APR 3 (UT). GOODTIME: 01:36:00 (228879364) to 02:09:00 (228881344) TOTAL_GT: 1.98 ksec Day 093 is APR 3 (UT). GOODTIME: 12:37:00 (228919024) to 13:18:00 (228921484) TOTAL_GT: 2.46 ksec Day 094 is APR 4 (UT). GOODTIME: 01:25:00 (228965104) to 01:59:00 (228967144) TOTAL_GT: 2.04 ksec Day 094 is APR 4 (UT). GOODTIME: 10:52:00 (228999124) to 11:23:00 (229000984) TOTAL_GT: 1.86 ksec Day 095 is APR 5 (UT). GOODTIME: 01:17:00 (229051024) to 01:50:00 (229053004) TOTAL_GT: 1.98 ksec Day 095 is APR 5 (UT). GOODTIME: 10:43:00 (229084984) to 11:16:00 (229086964) TOTAL_GT: 1.98 ksec -----------------------------------------------------------------------------