From jop at astro.columbia.edu Fri Jul 4 11:09:46 2008 From: jop at astro.columbia.edu (Joe Patterson) Date: Fri, 04 Jul 2008 11:09:46 -0400 Subject: (cba:news) OT_J130030.3+115101 superoutburst continues Message-ID: <486E3D3A.3010609@astro.columbia.edu> Dear CBAers, This star is poorly situated in the sky, but it's the first-observed-by-humans outburst, which adds interest... and at 13-14 mag is a solid object on CBA radar screens. It's a good target while waiting for VY Aqr to rise. No one observer can get satisfactorily long runs on this star, but we should be able to splice 'em together over a range of longitudes - so that at least the basic period-finding issues are clarified. The official and useful name, I suppose, is SDSS J130030.33+115101.2. The attached reference (nesssi) gives a chart that should allow you to find the star. joe -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [vsnet-alert 10308] OT_J130030.3+115101 superoutburst continues Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2008 21:04:35 +0900 From: Hiroyuki Maehara To: vsnet-alert at ooruri.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp, vsnet-campaign-dn at ooruri.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp, vsnet-outburst at ooruri.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp References: OT_J130030.3+115101 superoutburst continues. Time-resolved photometry is encouraged. object YYYYMMDD(UT) mag code OT_J130030.3+115101 20080704.47086 137CR Mhh.VSOLJ On Wed, Jul 02, 2008 at 03:59:48PM +0900, Taichi Kato wrote: > OT_J130030.3+115101 > > The following Catalina transient has a blue quiescent counterpart > (with a relatively high proper motion). > This appears to be an outburst of a dwarf nova. > > ASAS-3 also detected this outburst. The decline rate is not incompatible > with that of a superoutburst. Time-resolved photometry is encouraged. > > YYYYMMDD(UT) mag observer > 20080628.0295 <14.50V (ASAS (Pojmanski, G. 2002, Acta Astron. 52,397)) > 20080629.0876 <14.50V (ASAS (Pojmanski, G. 2002, Acta Astron. 52,397)) > 20080630.0406 13.257V (ASAS (Pojmanski, G. 2002, Acta Astron. 52,397)) > 20080702.0427 13.404V (ASAS (Pojmanski, G. 2002, Acta Astron. 52,397)) > > 807021120694107355 2008-07-02T05:16:29 2008-07-02T05:12:22 13 00 30.32 +11 51 01.4 4.320 13.88 13.88 13.89 13.88 http://nesssi.cacr.caltech.edu/catalina/20080702/807021120694107355.html > > SDSS: > 1 0.258 13 00 30.33 +11 51 01.2 1 6 J130030.33+115101.2 19.903 19.806 19.797 19.849 19.410 195.126379 +11.850333 2003.2451 2 From jop at astro.columbia.edu Tue Jul 15 09:20:25 2008 From: jop at astro.columbia.edu (Joe Patterson) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 09:20:25 -0400 Subject: (cba:news) stars for mid-July Message-ID: <487CA419.6080906@astro.columbia.edu> Dear CBAers, Attached is a letter I got from a new CBAer, John Hodge. This one means a lot to me, because he's an alumnus of a summer camp I ran in the early 70s, Camp Uraniborg. A lot of famous scientists came out of that camp (Neil Tyson, Rick Binzel, Doug Welch, Steve Kawaler, Tullis Onstott, Harriet Dinerstein, Peter Shearer, John Reinitz, among others), but so far I've not had the thrill of having one in the CBA! (Doug Welch is borderline, I guess.) Anyway I was really excited to hear of John's success in peddling astronomy to his son, and his son's success... as the attachment suggests. The campaigns on GW Lib and VY Aqr are going well, thanks to the Herculean efforts of Bob Rea, and the vigilance of Berto and Greg Bolt. But we're really hurting at North (and South) American longitudes for both of these stars! Most of that is probably due to the atrocious monsoon rains in the southwestern USA... but I hope that other observers can pick up the slack. We can easily break 24-hr aliases with the ZA-NZ-AU coverage, but the big missing chunk (all the Atlantic and half the Pacific) will hide the weaker satellite signals that are sometimes the most interesting. Anyway, we DEFINITELY want to stay on VY Aqr for at least another month... and quite possibly more. GW Lib is still a great target, but we might call it quits by ~Aug 1. Two new targets I want to promote are: MN Dra (2023+64). This seems to be roughly a SU UMa dwarf nova with a 60 day recurrence cycle (for long maxima)... but with oddities... and the truth is, it's VERY POORLY STUDIED. In view of the oddities it has already shown, that's a serious oversight... and let's remedy that! Admittedly faint (15.8-19.3), but definitely worth observing even with photometry of lower accuracy and longer integration times than is our norm. Good for all borealites. SDSS J2100+00. See the PASP paper by Tramposch et al. 2005. Also slightly faint (16-19), and with a pretty similar story and likely to be a rewarding target for several months of coverage. There's a chart in the PASP paper. Plus renewed acquaintances with some old friends... WZ Sge (2006+17). The granddaddy of all the short-period guys. Amazingly, we have never really done a campaign on WZ Sge - and let's do one now! At 15.3 it's a friendlier target... but you *definitely* have to figure out what you're going do about the ugly contaminating star 11" away. (That's far enough that you can usually exclude it from the photometry... but not if you have problems with image quality or telescope drive.) I'm heading off to Maine in a few hours. More from there. joe -------- Original Message -------- Subject: A long over due thank you - and I just sent in my first CBA data submission! Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 01:21:07 -0400 From: john hodge To: Joe Patterson Dear Joe: I finally sent in my first CBA data submission today. If I can get the hang of the reporting format, I hope to start making regular submissions to the CBA program. I hope that the quality of the data will meet your requirements. On a separate note, you may recall that several years ago, I solicited several science fair topics from you for my son (John II). He and I owe you a belated thank you! He will probably drop you a note of thanks soon too. Based upon the information that you had provided, he acquired several books on CVs and began reading, asked me for assistance with my telescope, and he began time series imaging selected CVs. Ultimately, he ended up imaging about 10 different CVs. He chose IP Peg to do an in depth analysis of the light curve which included properties of the white dwarf, red dwarf, and accretion disk. For his research, he won numerous prizes (including the third grand prize) at the regional science fair, South Carolina Junior Academy of Sciences (Best Paper and Presentation in Physics), he presented his work at the National Junior Science and Humanities Symposium in Florida, and recently was selected by the Astronomical League as the 2008 National Young Astronomer Award winner! I will ask him to send you a copy of his research paper and I have attached a page out of the Astronomical League's Reflector publication that recently announced the award. John recently completed high school and he did quite well, particularly in math and science. He made 800 on the math SAT and took a bunch of AP courses. He decided to attend Duke in the fall and intends to study electrical & computer engineering and physics (double major or major-minor). He is interested in astrophysics and can also take astronomy courses at UNC, which is close by. Thank you for the initial suggestion for his research. He acknowledged your suggestion that he work on CVs in his many presentations. You'd be interested to also know that he was a pitcher and outfielder on his public high school's baseball team. I also learned a lot about CVs as a result of his two-year project. During this time I also finished a Certificate in Planetary Geology from the University of London (while still doing my day job as an environmental attorney and geologist), was chosen as a NASA - JPL Solar System Ambassador (volunteer public speaker on planetary science), and managed regular trips to my observatory (about an hour drive each way). That's all for now. Many thanks, Joe. I look forward to sending in data and hope to become a regular contributor. JOHN HODGE -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: john hodge II NYAACopy.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 334962 bytes Desc: not available URL: