(cba:news) RX And, done for the year; V592 Cas, FY Per, FS Aur, ES Cet

[Joe Patterson]

Dear CBAers,

The response for the RX And campaign has been wonderful; I can hardly 
imagine getting any better coverage from the Earth's surface.  The 
star's low states (where the periodicity lurks) are of short duration, 
so we have to analyze each one separately.  We'll never do better than 
we just did - so I recommend that we END the campaign now.  It certainly 
looks like we got what we wanted and more.

Another bright target perfectly placed in the sky is V592 Cas, and 
that's a good candidate to RX And for you bright-star-loving northern 
CBAers.  Or FY Per; the latter is a true mystery - we're practically 
clueless re this star - but it presents a big observational problem:
the variation is quite weak, and you must use a filter (V) to subdue 
differential extinction.  It seems to have a 1.6 hour spectroscopic 
period, and a 6.2 hour photometric period.  The latter is weak and not 
necessarily permanent - so really needs to be firmed up, or rejected.
Tough observational problem, though.  FY Per is FS Aur's only hope to 
have a cousin in the CV zoo.

And for that matter, there's FS Aur itself, presenting a similar but 
somewhat better documented mystery [P_phot = 3.1 hr, P_spec = 1.4 hr].
Good year and month to revisit this guy!  Not as formidable a challenge, 
but also very low in entertainment value - at first sight the light 
curve seems erratic and not interesting.  We definitely want a few 
exploratory runs on these two stars - then we'll see where to go.

Whereas V592 Cas is a sure winner no matter what shows up.

Of course, ASASSN-14ei continues to produce pure gold - gold at 47 
degrees south.  No CBA action yet on ES Cet yet - but that would be 
mighty nice to start!

joe p

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