Dave McDonald discovers new variable star!

Tech Amergin's auditorium only holds 99 people max. Half of that will be our members the other half will be the lucky one's who manage to book first. We'll be all astro-photography mad by the time you leave...:laugh:
You must be inundated with interest and offers, thanks for sparing us the time. A local man said to me this morning that our group has been lucky for Irish Astronomy since we set up, there's been a lot of discoveries ...what a compliment:) wish we could take the credit though
Of course it's all just co-incidence but gossip down in this neck of the planet goes a long way, and GOOD gossip is priceless, and since we are just starting up we need all the local support that we can get.
Thanks again

Congrats Dave!
Glad to see amateurs contribute to science!

Vagelis

Folks - now that the moon is getting out of the way, the weather forecasts aren't great... So, I'm asking if anyone would be interested in helping in gathering data for the new eclipsing binary.

All that would be required is:

1. You can take calibrated (flats and darks) FITS images of the star (its mag 15.0 ish)
2. The imaged star itself would need an SNR of not less than about 50 or so

If you can do this, I would gladly accept your images (we can work out the logisitcs of that later) and process them. I will construct a report to the AAVSO and give you full credit.

All we know so far is that one of the (probable) two dips shows a mag drop of 0.4 and that lasts no more than about 2 hours or a little less. We need to find the second dip in order to work out the full period. It seems likely that the period is of the order of 24 to 48 hours or so - but that's not certain.

So, any and all images would be welcomed.

I'd suggest a stratagy that images the star say every 30 minutes (less if you can) and with an exposure time that gives you the SNR of 50 or so. Calibration frames are required.

If you manage to image the star, I can do all the processing, including calbrating the images if you provide me with flats and darks.

I'll need information on your setup but again, I can get that data at a later stage.

Anyhow, I thought with the weather and all, plus limited time availability myself, that others might be interested in contributing.

Further details (position etc) can be found here:

www.astroshack.net/000BJX116.php

If anyone wants to go further and do all the processing and calculating etc themselves, I can provide more detail on what to collect and where/how to report it.

Cheers
Dave

Count me in Dave.

Thanks,

Michael.

I did more work on this last night and mamaged to get additional images. Conditions weren't great but the data seems passable. I think I have captured the second minima, which is good news. Even better news, seems the second minima is about 0.25 drops in magnitude - that means its still pretty easy to catch.

Based on initial indications, the period looks to be around 11 to 13 hours, give or take, with two minima. One minima starting at 0.25 phase, ending at 0.4 phase, mag drop of about 0.4. The second minima starts at 0.65 phase and ends around 0.9 phase with a mag drop of about 0.25.

I'll keep you posted - especially anyone who wants to have a go at imaging it.

Dave

Keep this up Dave and you'll be on the road to capturing exoplanets :silly: