(cba:news) OV Boo's ripping, awesome, groovy, out-of-the-blue outburst

[Joe Patterson]

Best strategy here is to increase exposure time, *gradually* as the star 
gets fainter.  Unfortunately for us small-scopers, the brightness at 
mid-eclipse does matter quite a bit - because it reveals how much light 
is down there right at the white dwarf (the WD itself and inner disk). 
So absence of points at mid-eclipse is a problem.

But time resolution is a somewhat bigger problem.  Everything happens 
fast with this star, so we have to keep integrations short.

The star is still 2 mag above minimum light, and re-brightenings - even 
second outbursts - are still possible.  We must keep going on this 
unique star (only known Pop II star among the ~1000 known CVs).  S/N 
around 10-15 is just fine.  By superposing the various light curves 
("crowdsourcing") we're managing to get excellent data from these 
various runs at S/N~15... and at least delineating the walls of the 
sharp-walled eclipse.

We also have occasional opportunities for pot-shots with 1-meter 
telescopes, later in May and June.  Mainly through John Thorstensen and 
Matt Wood.  Let's stay good buddies with this star!

I'll present results-to-date at the SAS/AAVSO meeting (Ontario, 
California) in mid-June, and hope to see a bunch of you there!

joe p

On 4/27/2017 8:01 PM, Shawn Dvorak wrote:
> I got fairly good data last night, but it's getting a bit faint for
> high(ish) cadence observations. I ran with 45 sec exposures with a clear
> filter, and I was missing the lower parts of the eclipse - it's getting
> down around 18.5 now. I'll have to increase exposure time, or move on to
> other objects until/if a rebrightening occurs.
>
> Shawn
>
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