(cba:news) look, there's another one!

[Joe Patterson]

Would someone please close the spigot of erupting, interesting dwarf
novae?!

It's enough to make an old guy nervous.... and leave some of the children
out in the cold.

The AU/NZ group did a great job on OY Car in Jan 2000 - probably the
second (to WZ Sge, natch) best coverage of any dwarf nova ever.  Haven't
prepared that set for publication yet, but it's not far off.  We *did*
publish some quite good coverage of TU Crt (paper by Mennickent et al. 99
I think).  So I'm inclined to lay off those guys.

XZ Eri is great and the world seems suitably energized by it, so I'm sure
that one will stay on our list for a few weeks at least.  However, it will
soon be below 16 (I imagine) and eventually you'll have to consider it too
faint.  We have 3 consecutive long nights on it at MDM, and the weather
forecast remains good, and we have 8 more scheduled nights on the
telescope.  So that might secure the USA part of longitude space - if we
stay on it.  But I'm very chagrined to abandon DW Cnc and BG CMi - prime
stars in a prime season, with exquisitely interesting arrays of periodic
signals.  Those stars are ~14.5 and could be done with smaller scopes...
any norteamericanos out there who will swear fealty to DW Cnc or BG CMi?
Or maybe Euros, who are likely not tempted by Eridanus?

Finally there's GZ Cnc... damn!  This short-P dwarf nova also just
erupted, and Taichi Kato has reported some very tantalizing wiggles in its
light curve.  The midnight sky is getting so terribly crowded - and I hate
to ignore perfectly placed stars since very long runs are so healthy for
our enterprise.

I'm going over to Biosphere 2 tonight, and will leave Maddy Reed in charge
of the telescope (just in case Sirius B erupts or something, the telephone
here is 520-318-8661).  The 2.4 m observer is John Thorstensen, so it's an
all-CV mountain ridge this week.  Back in the observing saddle Monday
(though Maddy does most of the observing - I'm better at stuff like
"wow, Venus looks great tonight").

The BG CMi campaign is going extremely well, but all this competition is
just so fierce!  I'll meditate and write again tonight or tomorrow...

And also respond to Berto's note... a subject that fascinates me as much
as it does him (I think)!


      joe