From jop at astro.columbia.edu  Tue Jan  6 16:25:24 2004
From: jop at astro.columbia.edu (Joe Patterson)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 16:25:24 -0500 (EST)
Subject: (cba:news) GRB Now (fwd)
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.33.0401061623560.11068-100000@fidelio.phys.columbia.edu>


Message for australites - sumpin' to check NOW!

joe


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 14:45:13 -0500 (EST)
From: Jules Halpern <jules>
To: jop
Subject: GRB Now


TITLE:   GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT
NUMBER:  2505
SUBJECT: GRB 040106 : a long GRB detected with INTEGRAL
DATE:    04/01/06 19:13:12 GMT
FROM:    Sandro Mereghetti at IASF/CNR  <sandro at mi.iasf.cnr.it>

S Mereghetti, D.Gotz, M. Beck and J. Borkowski on behalf of the IBAS
Localization Team, S.Shaw on behalf of the INTEGRAL Science Data
Centre and the INTEGRAL Science Working Team report:

A  GRB lasting about 60 s has been detected with IBAS at 17:55:12 UTC.
The GRB has been detected in IBIS/ISGRI data in the 15-200 keV energy
band.

The coordinates (J2000) are R.A. 11h 52m 17.7Dec. -46deg 47' 15'' with an
uncertainty of 3 arcmin.

This message can be cited





From jop at astro.columbia.edu  Wed Jan 14 11:39:26 2004
From: jop at astro.columbia.edu (Joe Patterson)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 11:39:26 -0500 (EST)
Subject: (cba:news) happy festivus!
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.33.0401140859460.23968-100000@fidelio.phys.columbia.edu>


A little late for the new year, early for the Chinese... so we'll keep
it international, secular, and just sort of general and solistitial.

Almost a month since the last message!  Both dwarf novae of December have
faded: UZ Boo and SDSS0137-09.  The former was really haunted by poor sky
position; I have high hopes of measuring the orbital period next week at
Kitt Peak... and we have Psh... but we'll just have to see how that goes.
The latter was really good, with fine data sets from Berto, Greg, Arto,
and Dave Messier, as well as MDM and SAAO.  I've sent the data off to
Retha Pretorius (now *there's* an ethnic name!) at SAAO for write-up.

Time to change the menu.  AH Men has been having its best year - belting
out some healthy superhumps, and under the watchful gaze of CBAers (Bill
Allen, Jennie McCormick, Grant Christie, Bob Rea  - the usual Kiwi
stalwarts - and Tom Richards).  We're up to 90 days coverage, and will
probably keep going for another ~30.  Very much worth keeping the faith!

But plenty of new southern targets too.  Here goes.

RX0354-16 ("Eri" in the Downes catalogue).  About 15.7, and showing about
a 90 minute wave in the light curve.  We've gotten some runs from Kitt
Peak, but GREATLY need runs from other longitudes to break the alias.  A
very good early-night target for a couple weeks, though probably needing a
pretty good quality night.

V436 Car (0744-52) and WX Pyx (0833-22).  Fairly new stars, i.e. newly
recognized to be of very high interest, mainly because of rapid coherent
pulsations in their light curves.  I don't know much about either, but
should be CBA green-light specials.  Pick the one you like and fire away
with gusto (and with long runs).  Tis the season for Carina and Pyx,
remanants of the old Argo Navis constellation.

Finally, EX Hya.  A tad early in the season, but early-season timings of
its 67-minute variation would be mighty useful (bigger campaign coming in
March).

And now for the NORTH...

WX Pyx and RX0354-16 are accessible southern stars... and since we still
have no regular South American coverage, we rely on southern U.S.
observers to anchor down that node in longitude!  The U.S. presence in the
CBA has gotten low recently, and I hope some people will help on these
targets.

A happier declination is possessed by SDSS0809+38, a star about 15-16
which appears to be a short-period (2.4 hr) SW Sex binary.  Another
newcomer to the CV stage, and right up our alley - likely to show
superhumps, possibly other more rapid oscillations, and transiting local
meridians around midnight in late January.  A very, very tempting target
for long runs.

FS Aur also should stay on the menu.  It doesn't get much action, mostly
because it's still a star utterly resisting classification - showing a
3.4 hr photometric wave which no one has a clue how to interpret.  I have
no better idea than anyone else, but we sure oughta keep on top of the
thing.

Happy star-gazing!

joe



From jop at astro.columbia.edu  Fri Jan 23 17:33:44 2004
From: jop at astro.columbia.edu (Joe Patterson)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 17:33:44 -0500 (EST)
Subject: (cba:news) yy dra, fs aur, wx pyx
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.33.0401231710380.6493-100000@fidelio.phys.columbia.edu>


Dear CBAers,

Some new stars poppin' up and beggin' for attention.  YY Dra just jumped
into outburst, for the first time in 4 years.  It's a very rare
opportunity because YY Dra is a DQ Her star (rapidly rotating magnetic
white dwarf in a CV), and there is still not much understanding of how a
dwarf-nova outburst interacts with a magnetic field.  Past eruptions have
been short, so this is a time to jump to action NOW.  YY Dra is sometimes
known as DO Dra in variable-star catalogs, by the way (including cv cat as
I recall).  It should be about 12th mag now... though may fade soon.

The story on FS Aur is quite different.  This is a mystery star with a
photometric period much longer than its spectroscopic period.  From the
sparse 2003 coverage it looks like the period is changing now - and we
need some dense coverage now to document this change, before onrushing
twilight knocks us out.  The long period (3.5 hours) keeps the observing
season short (you kinda need to observe for a period, or nearly so).

Then there's WX Pyx.  This is a HARD target, at 17th magnitude.  But it
has a 26 minute signal of quite large amplitude, and many of you
australites can get good data on it when the nights's conditions are good.
Not pretty data, but of high scientific value.  Little is known of WX Pyx,
but if you hammer away on it for the next month, we can greatly increase
the world's knowledge of it, and properly define its DQ Her star
credentials.

Happy observing out there!

joe



From jop at astro.columbia.edu  Tue Jan 27 16:06:41 2004
From: jop at astro.columbia.edu (Joe Patterson)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 16:06:41 -0500 (EST)
Subject: (cba:news) cba goes commercial...
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401271444390.3431-100000@cbastro.org>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.33.0401271533580.10138-100000@fidelio.phys.columbia.edu>



Dear CBAers,

Well, it had to happen eventually.  If you've visited the website lately,
you may have seen an advertisement for shirts, caps, mugs, mousepads,
etc., with CBA logos.  Our unholy alliance with the world of commerce.

They look awfully good to me, especially the coffee mug and tote bag.  I
now go to morning coffee more often, and swish that coffee about a little
more jauntily.  Add a little swashbuckle with that CBA logo!

You can get the link from the CBA site, or go directly to http://www.
cafeshops.com/cbashop/.  You might also get Jonathan to customize one of
these things for you too, maybe.  I dunno much about it, but he does; I
think he selected these dozen or so things from a much vaster menu of
possibilities.

The northeastern U.S. is in the midst of a very deep freeze, the coldest
few weeks in decades.  Good for skating, and good for CCDs for that
matter... but bad for astronomy in general, since at some level human
comfort enters into the equation.  I imagine this is why CBA data has been
sluggish in the last month... and I hope the australites can make up for
it!

joe