(cba:news) November 2019 stars (Joe Patterson) [2019-10-28T20:49:14Z]
Dear CBAers,
Leaves are falling, and it's time for a new slate of targets. Thanks to
all of you who have been pursuing those summer targets so late in the
season... and I'm close to having the main target (Maxie) pulled
together in a paper. My torn Achilles is healing nicely, and I'm ready
for new challenges!
Maxie and AM CVn have consumed a lot of oxygen, and it's time to get
back to some other long-term timing projects - our specialty, and one we
squander when too much time goes by (because we might - HORRORS! - lose
cycle count).
I'll start with the DQ Her stars (intermediate polars). While LONG (6-7
hour) runs are very desirable, most of these stars will yield the
desired info (a pulse phase) with a simple 2-3 hour run, and something
like 1 minute time resolution. Maybe adopt 3-4 of them and try to hit
each about once a week; that could be a good strategy to maximiza
return. ON the other hand, returning to the same target repeatedly has
merit too - that approach will *really* nail down the period.
Most of these stars are expected to be somewhere around 15th magnitude.
Here's a list:
V647 Aur
V418 Gem
V1062 Tau
V1033 Cas
BG CMi
HT Cam (probably 17.5)
AO Psc
HZ Pup
If you google "intermediate polars", you'll get Koji Mukai's master list
of IPs - which I strongly recommend! Lew Cook has cooked up an even
more convenient table of useful data from Koji's list; Lew, could you
send it around again?
Now for classical novae ("old novae"). As some of you know, this has
been a favorite topic of ours ever since T Pyx staged its latest
performance in 2011. Here, long runs are much more critical. In most
cases, it's because the known or suspected periods are long(ish). In
some other cases, it's because the signals are weak and need extra
length to reveal. Here's the list of stars:
T Pyx
BT Mon
V959 Mon
T Aur
V Per (probably 18.5)
Finally, a few miscellaneous stars, which don't *exactly* belong in
these categories, but where we've accumulated enough data to make them
candidates for proper classification/publication, if we can get one more
really solid season:
QR And (short runs not useful)
V598 Pup
V598 Peg
FS Aur
For one observer, it's usually a good idea to adopt 1-4 of these stars
which seem suitable in terms of sky position, simplicity of field (avoid
crowding, etc.), and brightness. If you decide to specialize in one
star, and would like to receive previous data on it - to make your own
study, or for any other reason -, just ask!
joe
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