From jop at astro.columbia.edu  Sun May 13 16:54:04 2007
From: jop at astro.columbia.edu (Joe Patterson)
Date: Sun, 13 May 2007 16:54:04 -0400
Subject: (cba:news) may stars
Message-ID: <46477AEC.3010501@astro.columbia.edu>

Dear CBAers,

The GW Lib campaign continues to go strong, and this star remains our 
best target - probably this touchstone star will remain quiet for 
another 24 years after the present shot.  So for australites and those 
in the southern USA, continue to fire away.  Even if the star dives to 
16th magnitude, it still deserves long runs to track the various 
periodic signals.

BZ UMa is being seriously attacked by western twilight, and it's time to 
retire it from the northern menu.  In its place, I recommend the following:

AM CVn - still plenty of life in the old gal.

SDSS1327+65 - this star is about 17.5, pretty tough for CBAers, but is 
likely to be pretty rewarding if you have good nights.

RX1643+34 = "Her" - At 12.7, this is a good star for any night/any 
telescope.  Nice collection of superhumps, but we've learned only a 
little about it - let's make it a hit in 2007.

DQ Her - we'd like to amass timings of its 71 s oscillation, and of its 
4.6 hr eclipse.  Need fast cycle time to properly resolve the former.

In the south, EX Hya is still of interest, and FO Aqr is now back in the 
morning sky, needing attention.

Kinda rushed today - leaving for Italy in a few minutes. I'll try to 
write from there!

joe


From jop at astro.columbia.edu  Sat May 26 09:25:55 2007
From: jop at astro.columbia.edu (Joe Patterson)
Date: Sat, 26 May 2007 09:25:55 -0400
Subject: (cba:news) kx aql in outburst
Message-ID: <46583563.3010909@astro.columbia.edu>


Dear CBAers,

Just back from Italy, and am working through the recent data.  The GW 
Lib is really, really good; our coverage of this great event rivals that 
of WZ Sge in 2001 - the gold standard in dwarf-nova eruption light 
curves.  And the humps remain strong and informative, with rich harmonic 
structure, despite the fading to about mag 15.0.  Try to keep the faith 
a few more weeks!  The star is likely to fade now on a timescale of 
months back to quiescence at 16.6, with a slowly declining superhump and 
slowly returning white-dwarf pulsations.  But as for what it really will 
do, well, no one knows; the only decent guideline is WZ Sge, just one 
star, and GW Lib has the extra feature of the wd pulsations.

USA observers might hang in there too... we're getting great stuff from 
Berto in South Africa and the power elite in NZ, but the 
Atlantic+Pacific gap is a mighty big longitude gap to bridge!  Even a 
2-hour run would be very useful.

Now along comes KX Aql, a rarely erupting DN which Jeremy Shears 
reported in eruption and showing a light curve suggestive of the rising 
branch of a supermax.  Still kinda early in the Aquila season (1933+14), 
but this is an extremely high priority object if it's still bright (now 
13.8) in two days' time.  There is no previous photometry of this star, 
so everything is new.  Because of the long southern nights now, this 
star should be decently observable from the south as well; and although 
no one can get really long light curves, we could do mighty well with 
vigorous data splicing.  So let's jump to action on this guy!

For the bright period coming up, I recommend Her=RX1643+34 as a good 
object for small scopes or mediocre nights.

Whatever you find out about KX Aql, send right away to cba-chat, 
cba-news, CVnet, vsnet, or all, or all you're inclined to.  The world 
needs to know a lot more about this star.

joe