(cba:news) may cba targets

[Joe Patterson]

Hi CBAers,

    Graduation day comes at last.  Time for desk cleaning, mid-term exam
tossing, and general refocus of the mind.  And tomorrow I leave for a long
observing run.

    The marches of Sun (mostly) and Moon (somewhat) force a changing of
targets.  Time to abandon SDSS1238-03.  The 2006 coverage is eminently
ripe for publishing, and establishes both the existence of a 9 hr cycle
(previously known) and its coherence timescale (not previously known).
I'm really happy about it!  But the runs are getting too short, and the
Moon too bright.

   The best targets for the next ~10 days are pretty bright.  In the
south, it's still EX Hya and HP Lib, with the latter probably of somewhat
higher priority.  And slightly later on in the night, it's V617 Sgr and
V1223 Sgr.  Long coverage is ideal for these stars, as is almost always
true for our targets.  At the end of the night, there's FO Aqr and AO Psc;
much too early to permit long runs on these guys, but 1-2 hour runs to
establish early-season pulse timings would be great.

   In the north, it's a simpler menu: HP Lib and RX1643+34 ("Her").  The
latter should be good for all-nighters this time of year!

   About a dozen of us will be attending the SAS convention in Big Bear.
A few notes relevant to this:

1. Southern California is very sunny in May; in the lowlands (practically
everything is the lowlands), dress for summer.  However, Big Bear itself
is at 7000 feet, PLUS has a large diurnal temperature range.  So you'll
need some clothing suitable for the very cold nights.  It does warm up
pretty fast when the sun comes up.

2. If you have some footwear for light hiking, that would be nice.  Plenty
of such opportunities in the area.

3. You can find a schedule of events at the "socastrosci" website.  I
expect to arrive late Monday night, staying till Friday.

I'll be able to read email for 1 more day, then out of touch till very
late Friday night.

joe