(cba:news) february stars

[Joe Patterson]

Dear CBAers,

Sorry about my (crazy) long silence.  I've been engrossed in two big 
writing projects - a CV review paper and a history-of-astronomy book for 
the course I teach.  Lots of progress, at least on the second, but I've 
left CBA biz sort of hanging as a result.  Not re data analysis, but re 
communication!

But I'm back in action now.  Here are some stars which are ready to be 
taken off the menu:

1. T Pyx. Everything complete now, all the i's dotted and figures made. 
  The 20-year study!  I'm grateful to you australites who kept the faith 
this year; it nailed down the Porb change this season, and greatly 
strengthened the conclusion that Pdot after outburst = Pdot before 
outburst.  No need for new data.

2. RW Tri.  Absolutely great coverage, but the season has ended. 
Seemingly a discovery of a new very long period in RW Tri.

3. DW UMa.  The season has barely begun, and it's one of our favorite 
stars.  BUT David Boyd is on the verge of completing his write-up of a 
many-year campaign... and it may be time to take a rest.  David, it's up 
to you.

4. BY Cam.  Great campaign.  I'm inclined to say "enough for the year", 
especially since there are many good evening stars in the north.

And here are some new stars for the menu.

1. BH Lyn. Definitely.  We had a good campaign a long time ago which 
showed superhumps, but the sign was undetermined because plausible 
positive and negative superhumps were (by chance) separated by 1 
cycle/day.  Bad luck!  We have better longitude coverage now, and will 
resolve this ambiguity.  15th mag star, great northern target.

2. AT Cnc.  Just getting to know this star, apparently a very old nova. 
  Possibly a close cousin to V1101 Aql, which has been so good to us.

3. AM CVn.  OK, not a very interesting star (14.2 all the time).  But 
we're one season away from nailing down the Pdot of its orbital signal. 
  We seem to be the only people who can measure it - it's just 1% - and 
it's our duty to do it!  This is a helium CV; its main period is 525 s, 
but the orbital signal is at 1028 s.

4. V902 Mon.  Really, really strange star. Eclipsing 8-hr guy. 
Practically all our data is from Enrique, so we don't have the advantage 
of longitude span.  He'll keep going; it would be great to have help 
from AU/NZ and the Americas.

5.  HZ Pup. Not new but I just wanted to beg a little harder for 
coverage of this "new" DQ Her star.

In addition to the new ones, I wanted to beg again for coverage of some 
stars requested in December.  I'll do that in the NEXT MESSAGE.

And Enrique and David (Boyd), let your opinions be known!


joe
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