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(cba:news) Stars for February (Joe Patterson) [2011-02-02T03:17:43Z]


Dear CBAers,

Sorry for my prolonged silence. Suddenly, actual students have arrived back at school!

And I'm grateful for all the leadership you guys have shown with respect to the various stars popping off up there. The dwarf novae have been really putting on a show... and led by Enrique and Tom, the coverage has been just outstanding. I'm still sorting 'em out, but it does look like V1212 Tau and CSS0431-03 will be having a significant impact on dwarf-nova studies - a tad out of the ordinary. And ER UMa is even more interesting, oddly flashing very strong negative superhumps at us. That one shocked me. I've always wanted to do a long study of ER UMa, since it offers the opportunity to follow the variations throughout an entire outburst cycle. But never got around to it. Now, the star cries out for attention... and it's definitely UMa season! So fire away on ER.

Unfortunately, I have another UMa star, and another almost-UMa star, to promote. The first is UMa 6 (Downes designation, also known as 4U0928+50). This is a 10.04 hour eclipsing binary, with still no proper publication on it. We need to get about another 5-8 nights on it to complete our study. Not a really big project, but the runs need to be long since Porb is. The second is BH Lyn - another eclipsing CV which we studied in the mid-90s and never got back to. It has pretty good superhumps, but the coverage back in 1996-7 was sufficiently sparse that I couldn't actually distinguish - due to aliasing - positive from negative (i.e. suoerhumps). It should be a snap with long time series from Europe and North America spliced.

The DQ Her stars - and I'm embarrassed to be so fond of them when the dwarf novae are flashing such beautiful fireworks - can take a break for
a couple months.  Though a coupla runs on HT Cam would be nice.

In the south, we need to pick up XMM 1151-6237 again, now that it has decently come out of the Sun. Enough to get the first 2011 timings and spruce up the ephemeris. And another 5-6 runs on T Pyx (thanks, Bob!). But the main southern target I want to promote is CP Puppis. This is another star I've been wanting to get back to for 15 years; something always comes up! But let's do it in 2011 once and for all. And by the way, observers in the southern USA can usefully contribute to this one too - I'm hoping for NZ-AU-South Africa-USA.

Finally, an update on AAVSO/AAS. I heard from some of you expressing your intention to attend, and others planning on Big Bear instead (granted: cheaper, better weather, beautiful surroundings, closer to our largest contingent, and an always-great meeting). So our little band will be divided, and any "CBA meeting" will wait another year. But I'm still promoting the AAVSO/AAS meeting! If you're planning to attend, remember to join the AAVSO first, since that'll get you into the AAVSO meeting and a serious discount on the AAS registration (which is hefty). I'll soon send out some suggested hotel information in Boston. See the AAVSO website for this May 21-26 joint meeting.

joe