From jop at astro.columbia.edu Wed Jan 5 07:13:27 2011 From: jop at astro.columbia.edu (Joe Patterson) Date: Wed, 05 Jan 2011 07:13:27 -0500 Subject: (cba:news) SDSS1146+67 and AM CVn Message-ID: <4D246067.1020803@astro.columbia.edu> Dear CBAers, See Enrique's note below about this new dwarf nova. Great star for us borealites! It's also time to start up the AM CVn season again. The 1992-2010 data shows a small period decrease pretty clearly (inflection in the O-C), but it's small enough that another season, or half season, is really needed to mail it down. Even though CanVen is slightly off season, you can still get 5 hour runs on it... and we need *dense* coverage, in order to separate the 1028 s signal from the contaminating and slightly larger 1051 and 1011 s signals. If you're in the USA and plan to observe AM CVn in the next 5 nights, could you use cba-chat to tell us? I have an observing run going at MDM right now, and have observed the star for 2 nights - I'd like to turn to fainter targets if possible (more suited to a 1.3 m telescope), but will only do so if I'm pretty sure someone else is doing it. joe -------- Original Message -------- Subject: new SU UMa candidate Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2011 09:01:31 +0100 From: Enrique de Miguel Agustino To: Joe Patterson Hi Joe, Just want to call your attention on this apparently SU UMa candidate, SDSS J114628.80+675909.7 in Dra. Jeremy Shears had reported (VSNet) a brightening of this object that could point to an outburst (~1 hour run on 3 Jan). I run afterwards (~1.5 h) and it exhibited very small sort of superhumps (full amplitude ~0.08 mag). But tonight it's clearly in superoutburst, with full ~0.4 mag amplitude superhumps and Psh=0.0615(8) d. It has reached a max Vmag of 15.00. I've sent the data to the CBA database as well as to Jeremy. References for this object: - Downes: CV/UG object with unkown range and no further info. - Szkody et al AJ 126, 1499 (2003). Supected DN with typical low-Mdot DN spectrum that points to SU UMa-type. From velocity curves, P_orb ~ 1.6 h = 0.0667 d. - International Variable Star Indes (VSX), UG type with max mag 16.9. - Ritter and Kolb (RKcat7.14, 2010) doesn't give any further info. This object may well be of interest to other CBAers, as it has been caught at the very beginning of the superoutburst, and is well placed for long time series (Northerners). Among other things, it appears that P_sh is (significantly) smaller than Porb, though I'm not sure about the uncertainty on the latter. Regards .... and all the best for 2011 (a bit late, I guess....) Enrique