(cba:news) November 2019 stars

[Joe Patterson]

Dear CBAers,

Leaves are falling, and it's time for a new slate of targets.  Thanks to 
all of you who have been pursuing those summer targets so late in the 
season... and I'm close to having the main target (Maxie) pulled 
together in a paper.  My torn Achilles is healing nicely, and I'm ready 
for new challenges!

Maxie and AM CVn have consumed a lot of oxygen, and it's time to get 
back to some other long-term timing projects - our specialty, and one we 
squander when too much time goes by (because we might - HORRORS! - lose 
cycle count).

I'll start with the DQ Her stars (intermediate polars).  While LONG (6-7 
hour) runs are very desirable, most of these stars will yield the 
desired info (a pulse phase) with a simple 2-3 hour run, and something 
like 1 minute time resolution.  Maybe adopt 3-4 of them and try to hit 
each about once a week; that could be a good strategy to maximiza 
return.  ON the other hand, returning to the same target repeatedly has 
merit too - that approach will *really* nail down the period.

Most of these stars are expected to be somewhere around 15th magnitude. 
Here's a list:
V647 Aur
V418 Gem
V1062 Tau
V1033 Cas
BG CMi
HT Cam (probably 17.5)
AO Psc
HZ Pup

If you google "intermediate polars", you'll get Koji Mukai's master list 
of IPs - which I strongly recommend!  Lew Cook has cooked up an even 
more convenient table of useful data from Koji's list; Lew, could you 
send it around again?

Now for classical novae ("old novae").  As some of you know, this has 
been a favorite topic of ours ever since T Pyx staged its latest 
performance in 2011.  Here, long runs are much more critical.  In most 
cases, it's because the known or suspected periods are long(ish).  In 
some other cases, it's because the signals are weak and need extra 
length to reveal.  Here's the list of stars:

T Pyx
BT Mon
V959 Mon
T Aur
V Per (probably 18.5)

Finally, a few miscellaneous stars, which don't *exactly* belong in 
these categories, but where we've accumulated enough data to make them 
candidates for proper classification/publication, if we can get one more 
really solid season:

QR And (short runs not useful)
V598 Pup
V598 Peg
FS Aur

For one observer, it's usually a good idea to adopt 1-4 of these stars 
which seem suitable in terms of sky position, simplicity of field (avoid 
crowding, etc.), and brightness.  If you decide to specialize in one 
star, and would like to receive previous data on it - to make your own 
study, or for any other reason -, just ask!

joe


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