From jop at astro.columbia.edu Wed Oct 12 19:31:49 2005 From: jop at astro.columbia.edu (Joe Patterson) Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 19:31:49 -0400 (EDT) Subject: (cba:news) SDSS 1730+32 eruption Message-ID: As some of you know well, and as I have been delinquent in urging, there's now a quite spectacular and new dwarf nova gracing the evening sky. This is SDSS 1730+32, which you'll find as one the "Her" objects in the Downes et al. catalogue. Its RA is rather intimidating for mid-October... but the Scandinavians (Arto et al.) have been doing very well with it, and if we can squeeze out just a little bit of coverage at other longitudes, we'll be able to define both the orbital and superhump signals quite well. (It shows deep eclipses, so offers excellent diagnostics of the disk properties.) Still around 13th mag too, I think. A great - though brief - opportunity for northern observers. Preferably VERY northern. joe From jop at astro.columbia.edu Fri Oct 14 10:32:27 2005 From: jop at astro.columbia.edu (Joe Patterson) Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2005 10:32:27 -0400 (EDT) Subject: (cba:news) sdss1702 caput Message-ID: OK, I'm convinced. This star has faded too far to be a reasonable target for CBA photometry. Nevertheless, the vigilance of observers, and especially Arto, as given us a nice data set ro document the superoutburst and superhumps. We'll couple it with large-scope photometry next spring for a very nifty study. Over the weekend I'll summarize what I manage to extract from a quick-look at this data - though I suspect it'll be simply what Arto has already pointed out. HS2331+3905 is perhaps the best target for northern observers - though at 16.5 a little challenging for bright-moon or cloudy conditions. PX And is a very good target too, and not as demanding. joe From jop at astro.columbia.edu Wed Oct 19 05:00:27 2005 From: jop at astro.columbia.edu (Joe Patterson) Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 05:00:27 -0400 (EDT) Subject: (cba:news) October stars Message-ID: Dear CBAers, About to go off to an Accreting-Compact-Star meeting - the "first annual" New England regional meeting. Strange that such an obviously good idea has been so slow to take root. That blazing Moon is finally on the wane, and it's time to blow the dust off the telescope. Here's how we stand: 1. RZ Gru is back to normal. Not much of a dip. Done for the year, or longer. 2. Cep 1 isn't attracting much interest. Off the list for time series. But could you monitor it for eruptions? If it erupts, it's basically the biggest news in the history of CV science. 3. LD 317 is getting some attention, but not yet enough to form useful long time series. Could you beat heavily on this star? It's "And" in the Downes catalogue (2344+43). 4. HS 2331+3905 needs lots of attention too. Tougher at 16.5, but the light curve is quite rewarding. Another star never known to erupt - although it must! So if you find it in eruption, save some time by sending a self-addressed mailer to the Nobel Prize Committee... and clear a spot on your shelf for the Prize - right next to your CBA coffee mug. 5. Pretty much same situation for BW Scl (and the Nobel Committee might favor the southerners if they are equal-opportunity minded). Nice orbital light curve, we need the new season to top off a long study... and sure to erupt one of these decades, though no eruption ever seen. That's a program with a lot of scientific meat! For brighter and semi-cloudy time, TT Ari beckons from both hemispheres (dec=+15). Unlike RZ Gru, it is definitely on the wane (0.7 mag drop so far). Still plenty bright to redeem those marginal nights. Now off to catch that plane. Quite a large paper just published by PASP (Nov), although they won't admit it yet. Jonathan is sending preprints to all authors, and you can also download the pdf file from astro-ph. It's one of the two goals of my sabbatical year, and I'm pretty happy about it. I think it also illustrates well the power of collaborative multisite light curves. joe