(cba:news) scratch RX 0704+26 (Joe Patterson) [2010-10-13T09:54:05Z]

Dear CBAers,

Thanks to Tom and Bill Goff, the October 2010 pulse timings of RX0704 
have nailed down the long-term pulse ephemeris, and I've completed our 
paper on this star.  I'll send it out next week to collaborators (over 
the last 5 years: Mike Potter, David Boyd, George Roberts, Donn Starkey,
Tut Campbell, and a few Columbias/Dartmouths).  Great star, but we're 
done with it.

A good time to work on other DQ Hers.  (BTW, Koji Mukai's 
intermediate-polar webpage is information-central on these matters.) 
We're putting V709 Cas and XSS0056+45 on hold for a while, but excellent 
choices are V405 Aur (another big amplitude), RX0636+35, BG CMi, Swift 
0732-13, V1062 Tau, MU Cam, HT Cam, PQ Gem (V filter only).
This is in addition to not-yet-completed campaigns in the evening sky on 
AO Psc (easy), FO Aqr (easy), V2306 Cyg (hard), and RX2133+51 (hard).
More than half of these stars have no published long-term period study, 
and NONE of them have such studies which are still valid today.  Much to 
be learned from these stars, and because the periods are short, the 
information (pulse-timing) comes pretty fast.  Also, unlike any other 
star we observe, observations early and late in the observing season 
have extra value, since they provide a lever-arm to determine cycle 
count between years.

SDSS0804+51 continues to entertain with its echo outbursts... so cancel 
my dissing of this star.  It's still awfully tough to decode this 
complex star, but it's a mighty important star.

joe