(cba:news) winners and losers

[Joe Patterson]

Dear CBAers,

Well, the biggest loser in many years is EC05565-5935.  I can't figger out
what's wrong with this star - but it's not doing anything (substantially
not varying) and the penalty for such malfeasance is immediate suspension.
Shame on me for ever suggesting it.

NSV10934 is putting on quite a show in the night sky of Victoria.  We're
getting lots of lovely data from Chris Stockdale, Peter Nelson, Tom
Richards, and Bernard Heathcoate.  I don't know too much about this group
of Aussies fairly new to us... but they all seem to be rather expert
with CCD data.  Plus they all seem to live "down the road" from each other
(and from Rod Stubbings).  That is one *amazing* road!

Anyway, NSV10934 is now fading but it has a good chance of being bright
enough in quiescence to nail the orbital period - which would give us a
nice bookend-pair of (Porb, Psuperhump), an item we greatly cherish (and
which tells us the mass ratio of the underlying binary).  So it's a good
object for continuing.

The other southern objects now are:

1. T Pyx.  An old favorite.  We've been tracking the 1.8 hour variation
now for a few years, and probably will published the result after one more
season.  About 2 weeks of coverage will do the trick.  Just nightly long
time series of differential photometry, our usual thing.

2. EC 10560-2902 (1950 coords 10h 56m 3.8s -29d 02m 57s).  Total newcomer.
About 14.0, classified as "novalike".  Whatever you find out, you'll be
the first to know!

How about the north?  Well, there's an outburst of UV Gem currently
ongoing.  It's fainter than 15 now... I'm not sure how much longer it'll
be on our radar screens.  But Tonny and Arto have observed it, some USA
coverage would be mighty nice to break aliases, etc.

The first week of BZ Cam data is in.  No big humps, but there are some
little humps and slow trends that look like good bets for yielding a
detection.  This is one of the few stars where we have a chance for actual
24-hr coverage, with Europe, North America, and Uzbekistan.  It's a
*great* target for the smaller scopes.

Another good one is the DQ Her star V405 Aur.  I'd like to substitute this
one for PQ Gem; V405 is brighter, the pulse fraction is higher, and its
pulsed light is more broad-spectrum than PQ Gem's (meaning that unfiltered
observations are fine, whereas they're somewhat problematic for PQ Gem).

Let's give DW Cnc a rest for a few weeks.  We'll pick it up later.  In 12
days I start an observing run at Kitt Peak, and that'll be a major target
of the 1.3 m.

I guess AO Psc and FO Aqr are slipping dangerously into the solar glare.
So we'll retire 'em.  Nobody ever observes 'em anyway - you guys just
don't appreciate those exquisite stars.


     joe