(cba:news) CR Boo at or near quiescence

Joe Patterson jop at astro.columbia.edu
Fri May 7 09:52:34 EDT 2010


Dear CBAers,

The first few runs on CR Boo, all on that first day, were great - with a 
strong 25 minute signal and a likely fast pulsation.  Around magnitude 
17.3.  In the two following days, the star resumed its perplexing rapid 
up-and-down ramps - only this time between 16 and 17.3, not between 14.5 
and 15.5 as is its more normal practice.

I now think it was a mistake to call off the earlier campaign.  These 
ramps are irritating, if what you really want is quiescence.  But since 
it's near quiescence, the star could well be just settling sporadically 
into it... and also, if we're decent scientists, we should welcome the 
challenge to understanding, rather than just be irritated... right? right?

So let's catapult CR Boo back into a top-priority target!  BTW try for 
cycle times (integration + readout) of less than 2 minutes.  It's faint, 
but a good candidate for rapid pulsations (hence the need to resolve 'em).

With the SAS conference looming at Big Bear, some of our big guns - 
especially in the western USA - will be out of action for a while.  I 
hope the rest of you will jump into the fray!

joe



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