(cba:news) IPs, and a few novae, galore

[Joe Patterson]

Hi CBAers,

As soon as I recede somewhat from minding CBA business (handing off to 
Matt Wood), the volume of CBA time series zooms upward!  I'm in better 
shape now, and can pay closer attention to all the work you guys are 
doing - but definitely need a lot of help paying close attention to 
individual stars.  Here's what I suggest:
(1) Select your favorites - stars which are well suited for you, by 
virtue of brightness, sky/seasonal position... and concentrate on them. 
A few dozen of your quality observations might well define the periodic 
behavior for the year - especially if non-USA observations (and/or 
slightly off-season ones)chip in too.

(2) Consider doing a preliminary analysis: delete bad/noisy points, and 
add heliocentric correction.  And (this is what I usually do, but 
obviously it blinds you to very-low-frequency signals).

(3) For long-ish runs, subtract the mean magnitude.  If the star trends 
upward/downward throughout your, it's hard to say what you should do. 
Just report it, I guess.

(4) As many of you know, filter choice doesn't matter much.

(5) I usually reduce each night to a .hz format - meaning 
heliocentric-corrected and zeroed.  That way, many nights with multiple 
observers can be made compatible.

This is all mainly for IPs.  For novae, the actual magnitude matters 
more.  More on that later.

joe patterson
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