From jk at cbastro.org Tue Mar 4 15:24:10 2008 From: jk at cbastro.org (Jonathan Kemp) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 10:24:10 -1000 (HST) Subject: (cba:news) welcome to cbastro.org ! Message-ID: Hi CBAers, As some of you may have noticed, the CBA now has a new domain: cbastro.org ! All world wide web and electronic mail services are now running successfully under this new domain and have been for the past week. While there should be full backward compatibility with cbastro.org for a while, I would encourage everybody to use the new domain for all web and mail services as soon as possible. In addition to providing the CBA with a more succinct internet identity, it will also facility me switching between or otherwise using multiple servers behind the scenes, so I recommend updating e-mail address books, web browser bookmarks, and web page links when convenient. Also, as noted in a previous thread, the e-mail auto-response for data submissions has been temporarily suspended, although the recent data page is current and up-to-date. I am considering alternative response approaches. Also, the under-the-hood tweaks to data archiving are starting to conclude, so the other data set submission summaries should soon be current once again (data, station, object, etc.). Lastly, I am currently updating our literature to reflect this new address. If you happen to be attending a conference or other gathering and have some desire for literature, please let me know and I'll see if I can help provide something with the new identity. (This message is the last being sent out from cbastro.org just in case some people need notification to explicitly whitelist the new cbastro.org domain.) Cheers, Jonathan CBA Hilo From jop at astro.columbia.edu Thu Mar 6 05:42:06 2008 From: jop at astro.columbia.edu (Joe Patterson) Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2008 05:42:06 -0500 Subject: (cba:news) March stars, take one Message-ID: <47CFCA7E.2030905@astro.columbia.edu> Dear CBAers, This new optical transient in Hya (I think), from the Catalina Sky Survey, has a good chance of being quite a gem! Below is ATEL 1411, the discovery announcement, and Kato's comment. Since it is 17th mag now, near the peak of outburst, it won't torment us for very long... but with about a week of data we should be able to squeeze out a decent period. Top - if transient! - priority for northern and southern observers. Time to usher a few stars off the stage. V485 Cen, UMa 6, V436 Car, T Pyx, DW Cnc... these stars are sufficiently well recorded for the year, and can rest up for the off-season. I still have some hope for MU Cam, but so far it doesn't seem to be too popular. HV Vir came down from its superoutburst, and may now have some echoes; these are certainly interesting but usually don't hump much (and they're hard to study because the nightly light curves often have large slopes). So I'm inclined, with reservation, to demote HV Vir also. For northerners, it's a great time to get long runs on AM CVn. I'm just wrapping a long-term period study. Such a study is maximally constrained by the earliest (1978) and latest (now) data, so long time series of this star are now - just for a few more weeks - would be great. Has anyone been following OT1112-35? Since Greg Bolt's superb data of December, I've been awfully curious about this star. Unfortunately we can't reach this dec from Arizona, so I rely on australite CBAers to tell me anything about it. It had a very long outburst, and I assume has faded now. Has it? How bright is it? I'd really like to pursue this guy any way possible! I also recommend RX1039-05 = Sex. Finishing a long-term study on this star also, and hence need 2008 timings. It's very faint (18) but has a HUGE photometric modulation - try it, you'll be impressed with how faint you can go when the wave amplitude really cooperates. I'll write again later today. I'd love to hear any news about the new Hydra (I think) transient. joe ****** CSS080304:090240+052500 is indeed a dwarf nova in outburst. The presence of He II emission lines, as well as the large outburst amplitude, suggest another WZ Sge-type outburst! The splitting in the line profile would suggest a high inclination. === ATEL #1411 ATEL #1411 Title: Discovery of a Bright Optical Transient from the Catalina Sky Survey Author: S.G. Djorgovski, A.J. Drake, R. Williams, A. Mahabal, M. Graham, E. Glikman, C. Donalek (Caltech); J. Hennawi (UCB/LBL); E.C. Beshore, S.M. Larson (UAz/LPL); E. Christensen (Gemini Obs.) Queries: george at astro.caltech.edu Posted: 4 Mar 2008; 23:58 UT Subjects: Optical, Request for Observations, Cataclysmic Variables, Novae, Transients We have detected a bright (V ~ 16 mag) optical transient in Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) images obtained at the Mt. Bigelow 0.7m Catalina Schmidt Telescope on 04 March 2008 UT.
CSS080304:090240+052500 2008-03-04 UT 05:34:11 RA 09:02:39.70 Dec 05:25:01.0 Mag 16.3
The transient is coincident within the astrometric uncertainties with a marginally detected SDSS source (ID = 587732578836087360), which has listed magnitudes: u = 23.76 +- 0.60 g = 23.17 +- 0.18 r = 23.10 +- 0.22 i = 23.00 +- 0.30 z = 22.19 +- 0.37 Thus, the source has brightened by about 7 magnitudes relative to the SDSS detection. The discovery data and the finding charts are posted at this webpage: http://voeventnet.caltech.edu/feeds/ATEL/CSS The source was posted in the real time at VOEvent pages, http://voeventnet.caltech.edu/feeds/Catalina.shtml A spectrum of the transient has been obtained with the ESI spectrograph at the WMKO Keck-II 10m telescope on the same night, 04 March 2008 UT, approximately 5 hours after the initial detection. It shows a blue continuum, with emission lines of H-alpha 6563, H-beta 4861, He I 5015, He I 7065, He II 4687, and He II 6683, with an approximate observed redshift of 150 km/s. The lines are bimodal, with a velocity splitting of about 500 km/s. We tentatively interpret this as a nova-like phenomenon. Further analysis of the spectra is in progress. From jop at astro.columbia.edu Fri Mar 7 07:37:20 2008 From: jop at astro.columbia.edu (Joe Patterson) Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2008 07:37:20 -0500 Subject: (cba:news) OT_J055924.1-512522 (new object in Pic)] Message-ID: <47D13700.5010500@astro.columbia.edu> Dear CBAers, I guess you all read Berto's message today. I had ignored this guy since it seemed a touch too red, too faint (at quiescence), too uncertain, too south.... But Berto's photometric wave changes that. This is definitely a prime target for however long it stays visible in our little telescopes. On an unrelated note, I thought I'd mention three upcoming meetings where CBAers will be in attendance. (1) the spring AAVSO meeting in England; (2) the late-May SAS meeting in Big Bear lake, CA (discussed by Jerry Foote); (3) the fall AAVSO meeting in Mass (I think); (4) the January meeting in Hawaii. I am definitely going to (4), and likely to either (2) or (3). We're not planning anything formal, but I'd like to know who plans to attend any of these... and I'm sure other CBAers would too. joe -------- Original Message -------- Subject: (cba:news) [vsnet-alert 9936] Re: OT_J055924.1-512522 (new object in Pic) Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2008 14:13:26 +0200 From: Berto Monard Reply-To: cba-chat at cbastro.org To: , , CC: cbat at cfa.harvard.edu, Hiroyuki Maehara References: <20080227061206.GA19922%mira at cetus-net.org> The optical transient in Pictoris was observed over three hours last night at CBA Pretoria. This is two weeks after the initial detection. The following approximate magnitudes where derived on mid time UT 20080306.77: B=15.8 (+/- 0.15) V=15.7 (+/- 0.1) R=15.6 (+/- 0.1) I=15.8 (+/- 0.15) Timeseries photometry with unfiltered CCD show a modulation in the light curve with period around 1.5h and amplitude of 0.15 . This object is very likely an outbursting dwarf nova (ugsu) and not a SN as might be initially derived from its directional nearness to a side-on galaxy, which is probably a bit too far out for the measured brightness of the object. Further observations will be attempted. Berto Monard Bronberg Observatory / CBA Pretoria /// On Wed, Feb 27, 2008 at 12:58:57PM +0900, Taichi Kato wrote: > According to CBAT's "Unconfirmed Observations Page", a possible > transient has been reported in Pic. mag = 13.3R at 055924.1 -512522 In the USNO B1.0 catalog, there is a faint object at the reported position. USNO-B1.0 0385-0053065 05 59 24.07 -51 25 22.0 B2mag=21.13 R2mag=20.58 ____________________________________________________________ Center for Backyard Astrophysics (CBA) mailing lists https://cbastro.org/communications/mailing-lists/