From jop at astro.columbia.edu Thu Dec 2 10:43:02 2004 From: jop at astro.columbia.edu (Joe Patterson) Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 10:43:02 -0500 (EST) Subject: (cba:news) stars for the new season Message-ID: Dear CBAers, Time for a major overhaul of targets! TT Ari, ES Cet, and BO Cet are all ready for retirement. The data on TT Ari are quite extensive and need another couple weeks' analysis; but I think I can see the main story emerging: a healthy apsidal superhump (at worb-W, where W is the putative precession frequency), with at least one sideband present (2worb-W). The ES Cet and BO Cet data firm up the long-term ephemerides - so those stars can be left till next year. V364 Peg is also ready for retirement - the superoutburst is (long since) over. It's a fine season for some new novalikes. FY Per and AH Men are prime northern and southern targets, and plenty bright for all conditions. I'm a little worried about the entertainment factor in FY Per, though. It's really been a mystery star for us - sometimes with no significant variability, other times sprouting a 1.5 hr period (anomalous since Pspec=6 hr). We just need to study it more! But I realize that flat light curves aren't too interesting... and dunno what the star will do, of course. Anyway, here are 2 other northern targets of high interest: FS Aur. You bet. Another mystery, much like FY Per except that the periodic signal and flickering in the star are reliably present, which makes it more interesting to observe. A good one for the best nights, since it's a lot fainter. BZ Cam. A novalike with waves in the light curve near Porb, but we just haven't managed to pin down the period(s?). Our last major effort was 10 years ago - time to get it right this time! I reckon these three targets to be of about equal priority. Remember, though, that long nights are *greatly* advantageous for our period-finding enterprise - so it's generally a good idea to adopt one and stick with it. In the south, it's AH Men and AH Pic (EC0556-5935). No periodic signals seen in the latter during 2002/3, but they did show up in the SAAO data, and they should be easy pickings for us! Could be a very interesting superhumper, well worth a 2-week campaign. AH Men should be on our list for a few months, with its impressively intricate (and varying) array of superhump signals. (Remember, AH Men has an unwanted companion 3 arcsec away, so you're going to have to deal with that - presumably by cleanly including it in aperture photometry. For *short* observations, the DQ Hers remain good: AO Psc, V405 Aur, BG CMi. Happy observing! joe From jop at astro.columbia.edu Thu Dec 23 10:25:50 2004 From: jop at astro.columbia.edu (Joe Patterson) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 10:25:50 -0500 (EST) Subject: (cba:news) 2004 sayonara Message-ID: Dear CBAers, A brief update before leaving for a quickie vacation... Thanks to all, esp. Tom Krajci and Greg Bolt, for diligence on the WX Cet outburst. I kind of fell asleep on that one. But it seems to be over now, so I recommend moving that one off the menu. Likewise, I recommend moving FY Per and AH Pic off the menu. Both of these stars will regard a *very* thorough campaign in the near future (next year). But with the present deployment of troops, I don't think we can crack the period-finding issues in these very quiet stars. My recommendation in the north is aimple: FS Aur and BZ Cam. Both stars have longish periods (3.5 hours), so length is highly desirable! In the south, it's also simple: AH Men and RR Pic. Except for FS Aur, which is borderline at 14.3, these stars are plenty bright enough to survive that brilliant Moon in the nights ahead. AH Men and RR Pic also have 3hourish periods, though with intricate structure. So they too will tend to reward all-night over split-night coverage - probably. Back in the saddle about a week hence. Enjoy those star-filled and very long/very short nights! joe