From jop at astro.columbia.edu Thu Jun 7 10:47:39 2012 From: jop at astro.columbia.edu (Joe Patterson) Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2012 10:47:39 -0400 Subject: (cba:news) stars for june 2012 Message-ID: <4FD0BF0B.8030308@astro.columbia.edu> and here's the spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Arj5FjuD3rVjdDFETmFCek41X1ZVckRaNlpkeW84TlE#gid=0 -------------- next part -------------- Dear CBAers, The new season brings a new crop of stars to the CBA lineup, and retires some others. Retired for seasonal reasons (and a few also for lack of satisfactory performance): V1084 Her, AM CVn, V795 Her, ER UMa. Many other notes supplied on Joe Ulowetz's spreadsheet. I struggled a bit with the spreadsheet, but the main new stars for coverage now are: V1974 Cyg - gold-plated star for saturation northern coverage with the bigger scopes CR Boo - for at least 2 more weeks, from telescopes NORTH AND SOUTH; the next super is about to happen V1432 Aql - for the new observing season; the star has 2 periods, 12116 and 12150 s, and it's up to us to learn how fast 12150 (allegedly rotation) is returning to 12116 (orbit). This is likely to be the timescale for re-locking of the WD after the disturbance of a classical nova outburst (although no such outburst is known for V1432). V4743 Sgr - important new DQ Her star. V503 Cyg - start the season for this important likely ER UMa star. More in a few days, and on spreadsheet. joe From jop at astro.columbia.edu Thu Jun 7 21:08:13 2012 From: jop at astro.columbia.edu (Joe Patterson) Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2012 21:08:13 -0400 Subject: (cba:news) Fwd: (cba:chat) CR Boo, very likely rising to superoutburst In-Reply-To: <79890843-9C14-475D-940F-50200F56E07E@gmail.com> References: <79890843-9C14-475D-940F-50200F56E07E@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4FD1507D.8010203@astro.columbia.edu> And here's the news re CR Boo. Since it's out of season, I'm hoping for very extensive multi-longitude cooperation on this one. New Zealand? Perth? South Africa? I think the southerners are somewhat favored for this despite the +8 degree dec - because of the mighty Sun, enemy of all things western this month. Not only is the superoutburst imminent, but the big superhumps are quite short-lived. We're plenty interested in their aftermath (stretching over a couple weeks)... but just what they do in that first glorious day, that's been mighty elusive! joe -------- Original Message -------- Subject: (cba:chat) CR Boo, very likely rising to superoutburst Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2012 02:20:36 +0200 From: Enrique de Miguel Reply-To: cba-chat at cbastro.org To: cba-chat at cbastro.org Hi all, 24 hours ago, CR Boo was in its low state at 17.3 mag. Right now it's at 14.9 mag and it has risen ~0.35 mag since I started this run (100 minutes ago). Considering that the next supermaximum was expected at JD ~ 87, this looks like the rising stage to the next superoutburst. As the brightness at supermax is ~14.1 mag, superhumps will likely start to show up over the next few hours. Enrique ____________________________________________________________ Center for Backyard Astrophysics (CBA) mailing lists https://cbastro.org/communications/mailing-lists/ From jop at astro.columbia.edu Fri Jun 8 21:50:25 2012 From: jop at astro.columbia.edu (Joe Patterson) Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2012 21:50:25 -0400 Subject: (cba:news) Fwd: AM Cvn-type star in outburst In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4FD2ABE1.4040909@astro.columbia.edu> More of a chat item, but I just wanted to give it a wider scope. New outbursting AM CVn stars only come along every 5-10 years, and this appears to be one. Plus it's transiting around midnight, and is not outrageously faint. Wow. Helena and her gang will probably run on this star around 1130-330 PDT = 1830-2230 UT from Kitt Peak (they'll start the night with CR Boo, now madly superhumping - it's a hot night for the heliums). It would be great if some USA observers could cover this helium star in Hercules at other times... and if everyone (Bob and Greg, is the sky clear out in Oceania?) could nail CR Boo during these critical nights. Then there's V1974 Cygni, which doesn't sink in my esteem just cuz the others rose. It sounds greedy, but I've been restrained in recent weeks! joe -------- Original Message -------- Subject: AM Cvn-type star in outburst Date: Sat, 9 Jun 2012 03:32:26 +0200 From: Enrique de Miguel To: Joe Patterson Joe, Not sure if you are aware of the vsnet-alert message send few hours ago regarding the outburst detected by Catalina on the AM CVn candidate SDSS J172102.48+273301.2. I guess that whatever anomalous happens to AM CVn stars it's worth having a look. I've stopped coverage on V1974 Cyg and chase that target for the rest of the night. It must be ~16.5 mag. It's showing ~0.15-0.18 mag modulations with a period of about 40-45 min (just visual inspection), probably being of orbital nature. Enrique PS Mount problem not solved yet ...... From jk at cbastro.org Mon Jun 18 15:30:40 2012 From: jk at cbastro.org (Jonathan Kemp) Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2012 09:30:40 -1000 (HST) Subject: (cba:news) big bear conference thoughts Message-ID: Hi CBAers, I just wanted to give you a bit of an update following the Big Bear SAS-AAVSO meeting in late May. I thought we had a very fruitful meeting of CBAers and prospective CBAers as well as many other useful casual discussions. After the meeting, Joe, Helena, Enrique, and I also had some discussions to address some of the issues brought up by CBAers. Here is a brief run-down of some of what we discussed: - We do not plan to amalgamate our data and archive with another organization. There was a widespread sentiment that a blanket policy of sending all data to another organization would likely remove the CBA's separate and unique identity. We do, however, plan to improve our infrastructure to address issues related to this (see other comments below). - We plan to roll out a web site upgrade over the coming year. I have been testing a content management system setup with another small astronomy organization and expect to implement that for the CBA. This will allow a more dynamic web site that can be more easily maintained by a core group of folks. - We plan to satisfy key aspects of member questions about current targets, data, and results by implementing a robust section of the web site tailored to the coordinates, charts, scientific justifications, observing strategies, and quick-look graphical results of current targets. - We plan to post more specific information regarding requested data format and associated metadata. We intend to continue to have flexibility, but a set of guidelines will be made more obvious. - We plan to post more specific information regarding flexibility that contributors should feel free to have with sharing their own data beyond the CBA. - We plan to reinstate production of CBA Newsletters. - We plan to develop an FAQ that more directly and obviously addresses common questions. - We plan to continue to satisfy data set requests by members and others and possibly making this request and access mechanism more transparent. - We plan to provide a more robust section of the web site identifying and describing individual members, at least to the extent to which they wish to be identified, and possibly providing the capability for members to personally maintain profiles. - We plan to investigate options for and adopt a web-based discussion forum for some CBA communications, including more casual and less time-critical discussions. - We plan to investigate options for, adopt, and migrate our data archiving to a new digital repository platform. - Also, it should be noted that the move of our server outside of Columbia last year means that we now have additional capabilities and fewer limitations than we once did. Now, this is a lot, and is fairly forward looking. But with a somewhat larger core of folks involved on the administrative and technical end, as well as new resources to help distribute maintenance and improvement, we hope to achieve many of these items, although I'm sure we'll fall short on others. We hope some will be this year, although the time-scale of others may be quite a bit longer. Lastly, on a personal note, I have been a bit spartan (to say the least, especially with respect to newer contributors) in personal CBA communications over the last year and a half. That period has seen me change observatories and spend an intense period getting up to speed with a new set of equipment, data, and responsibilities. I am now heading to the mainland as my spouse has accepted a position at a college in New England. CBA Hilo will soon become CBA Vermont, and with my change in commitments will hopefully come a bit more time for CBA involvement once again. Cheers, Jonathan (& Joe, Helena, Enrique) From jop at astro.columbia.edu Mon Jun 25 06:02:40 2012 From: jop at astro.columbia.edu (Joe Patterson) Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2012 06:02:40 -0400 Subject: (cba:news) Fwd: [vsnet-alert 14697] New bright CV in Vulpecula by MASTER In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4FE83740.6010802@astro.columbia.edu> Dear CBAers, Really nice candidate large-amplitude dwarf nova in this announcement. Vulpecula is definitely overdue for giving us a highly interesting CV. None since 1976 (NQ Vul), and this is a step in the right direction. From this report, seems very unlikely to be one of the standard CV imitators: flare star, asteroid, extragalactic. As Denis says, get thee to a telescope and start observing! joe -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [vsnet-alert 14697] New bright CV in Vulpecula by MASTER Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2012 13:50:20 +0400 From: Denis Denisenko To: vsnet-alert at ooruri.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp We have discovered a new bright CV in Vulpecula on the survey images from MASTER-Kislovodsk robotic telescope taken last night (about 13 hours ago). Astronomer's Telegram will be published soon at http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/ (should be ATel 4207). Meanwhile I am reporting the coordinates and finder charts so that people can start observing right now. Outburst amplitude is about 7m, so this one might be a new UGWZ variable. MASTER OT J211258.65+242145.4 = USNO-B1.0 1143-0518038 = GALEX J211258.7+242145 Unfiltered magnitudes from the discovery images: 2012-06-24 20:03:36 UT 12.85 2012-06-24 20:37:29 UT 12.94 2012-06-24 21:12:04 UT 12.90 Discovery and reference images: http://master.sai.msu.ru/static/OT/MASTER211258.65+242145.4.jpg There is a faint blue star on Palomar plates and in USNO-B1 catalog (B1=19.73, R1=20.03, B2=20.78, R2=20.39) with the proper motion (12, -4) mas/year. GALEX UV magnitudes are FUV=19.91, NUV=20.06. No prevoius outbursts were found on DSS plates and NEAT images. This area is not covered by SDSS and CRTS. 10'x10' color-combined (BRIR) DSS finder chart is uploaded to http://master.sai.msu.ru/static/OT/J211258.65+242145.4-BRIR10x10.jpg Denis Denisenko P.S. This is the first optical transient discovered by myself from the MASTER images after cheking several hundred candidates in 2.5 months, and such a bright one!