(cba:news) stars for the new year (Joe Patterson) [2010-12-29T16:32:15Z]

Dear CBAers,

Just a short note before getting back to various obligations of snow
removal, holidays, car repair, etc.

I think it's time to abandon OT0120+32.  Now faint and not discernibly
humping.  It might have a few echoes still, but these are well captured
by the snapshot observers... and in general, superhumps have proved to be
a very minor - and confusing - part of the story of echoes.  Time to say
goodbye.

For southerners, a star to begin on is AD Men, a now-bright dwarf nova
which we have never studied. Let the time series roll on this one.
Two other southern stars which now should take center stage are: T Pyx
(for about 1 month, to add one final season's timings before the final
paper is sent off) and WX Pyx (a greatly neglected star which should give
very handsome light curves, from its large-amplitude 30-minute wave).

I've been spending the last couple of weeks analyzing our data on many
of the DQ Hers (intermediate polars).  One difficulty which frequently
crops up is a lack of late-season and (especially!) early-season pulse
timings.  These are the critical points for establishing the cycle count
between years - and until you've solved that (usually just once), you
can't be sure of counting cycles in the typical 1-year gap between
observing seasons.  So, for example. stars around 0 hr and 12 hr are
now good targets since they're decidedly late-season and early-season.
This means AO Psc, V709 Cas, IGR0023+61, and XSS0056+45 are now good
candidates (for short runs).  In addition, ideal stars now for long,
middle-of-the-night runs are HT Cam, WX Pyx, and DW Cnc.  RX0636+35
can be forgotten for a few months; our RX0704+26 paper is accepted
now, but I admit to craving a few new pulse timings to insure we got
everything nailed down correctly and exactly.

I hope to hear from many of you regarding your possible attendance at
the AAVSO and AAS meeting in Boston in May 2011.  I think this would
be a great opportunity for a CBA meeting.  There are a few logistical
issues for me to solve - and I could get going on that if I had some
idea who among you might be interested.  One thing you definitely need
to do beforehand, though, is to JOIN THE AAVSO (formally).  That makes
you an eligible meeting-goer, plus gets you into the AAS meeting
cheaper.  I realize that the whole enterprise could come out kind of
expensive, but I'm ready to help you out with expenses.  Please write
me about this (and cc Jonathan); we don't have a huge amount of dough,
but all those lovely data sets you send can be very, very persuasive.


                             joe