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(cba:news) CR Boo and ASAS J1536-0839 (Joe Patterson) [2010-05-04T07:55:40Z]


Dear CBAers,

I've heard now from Enrique de Miguel Agostino and John Thorstensen regarding these stars. ASAS 1536 ("Lib") is about 18.4, and unless you're distinctly enamored of working on such faint stars (some people are), I'd advise you to take that one off the list.

On the other hand, Enrique estimates "fainter than 17.0" for CR Boo - and for us, that really vaults the star in priority. We've observed CR Boo for hundreds of nights, and only found it faint (~17.5) once... and when we did, it showed a really strange spectrum. I've been craving for this opportunity since 1996. Also, give the star now a high priority after it leaves the low state (sadly, that'll probably be quite soon); exactly how the star enters and leaves the low state - relative to its normal state of rapid cycling, for example - is unknown. Because past observations suggest a cycling quasiperiod around 19 hours, the star will GREATLY repay multi-longitude observation. With an equatorial location and the star now transiting near local midnight, this is likely to be a great observing opportunity.

17.5 might well be too ambitious, and if so, have a high old time with HP Lib - a close relative, quite bright, and pretty interesting too. But we'd sure love to indulge this craving for CR Boo in quiescence!

joe

John, I know yer out there with a spectrograph and a big telescope... and it's near local midnight. And reading email at this exact moment. I fling down the gauntlet.