(cba:news) Sep-Oct-Nov stars (Joe Patterson) [2020-09-23T18:44:32Z]

Hi CBAers,

New stars for the new season.  I'll separate into northern and southern.

As usual, it's a good idea with one or two favorite targets.  (If 
there's gold in any of these stars, I'll send up a signal!)  But 
inevitably all Earthly campaigns have gaps, and if they're too big, then 
period studies become uncertain

NORTH
V392 Per.  Make this recent nova high priority.  So far, the star shows 
a pretty good 1.1 hour signal - a puzzler.  But on a few good nights, 
it's missing - so that's suspicious. Since it's far northern and the 
observing season is just starting, we should be able to do very well on 
it.  Mag 15.0 now.

V378 Peg.  We have some good data from past years - seemingly orbit + 
superhump.  2020 will nail everything down.

V1500 Cyg and BY Cam.  "Asynchronous polars".  The general idea here is:
orbital period stable and known, spin period unstable on some timescale, 
which isn't really known.  Not so hard to measure, though - you just 
need to construct an O-C curve WITHOUT MISCOUNTING CYCLES.  But that can 
be challenging if the orbital signal is not quite of known amplitude and 
phase.  So a really good job is needed - hence the desirablity of 
"crowd-sourcing".  V1500 might be quite faint.

V598 Peg.  A nice well-placed IP, and time for us to mount a big campaign.

SOUTH
CC Scl - A mighty interesting IP, one of the few at short Porb.  Let's 
mount a strong campaign.

AH Men - we haven't written anything on this guy since 1995, and have 
lots of data ready to roll if we can get one more season.

ES Cet - let's extend that the long-term study of timing.

Finally, one subject area I would really like to stress is ORBITAL LIGHT 
CURVES OF OLD NOVAE.  Old just meaning a few (or more) years after the 
nova eruption.  None strike me as being particularly seasonal right now, 
but you might find some that are well-placed and within your magnitude 
limit.  V959 Mon is a definite possibility, but still maybe too early in 
the season...

AAVSO virtual meeting coming up in November - abstracts due Sep 30, I think.

joe
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