NLO spectrsocopers join international campaign

[NLO]

You are invited to participate in a new eclipsing binary star system campaign. Cezary Galan has asked for help with both photometric and spectroscopic observations of the AZ Cas eclipse.

The period is ~9.3 years and the eclipse lasts nearly 2 years. The star is high in the northern sky (Dec +61 degrees) so it should be observable near year around.

The eclipse campaign started in June 2012 and will end around August 2014. First contact is estimated mid-November 2012. Photometry and spectroscopy is requested. Photometrically the biggest magnitude changes are in the shorter wavelengths U (1.5 Mag change) and B (0.6 mag change) bands. Out-of-eclipse V magnitude is 9.3.

RA (2000.0): 014216.45 Dec. (2000.0): +612516.5 Type : EA/GS Mag. max : 9.22 Mag. min : 9.52 Mag. system : V Epoch (JD) : 42689 Period (day) : 3402 D : 03 Spec. : F8-M0eIb+B0-B1V

For spectroscopy, at V= 9 magnitude, modest sized telescopes will be too small for high resolution work. Lower resolution, particularly those with Lisa spectrographs, should be able to image the star system.

One paper on spectroscopy can be found at

http://articles.adsa...000079.000.html

A more thorough search may show more information and papers. See the original message below.

Jeff

Hopkins Phoenix Observatory

(187283)

Counting Photons

Phoenix, Arizona USA

www.hposoft.com/Astro/astro.html

http://www.hposoft.c...pectroBook.html

2012 ASP Amateur Achievement Award Winner

On Jul 6, 2012, at 6:16 AM, Cezary Galan wrote:

We would like to organize an international campaign to observe of the AZ Cas eclipse and periastron passage of 2012-2014. The details about the campaign are in IBVS:

http://www.konkoly.h...i-bin/IBVS?6027

and at the web page:

http://www.astri.uni.../~cgalan/AZCas/

The campaign will be similarly long-term as of yours, dedicated to epsilon Aurigae. It will be some easier for CCD photometry but simultaneously much more difficult for spectroscopy, because AZ Cas is for about 6 mag fainter than epsilon Aurigae. If you are interested to participate you are welcome.

By the way, I would like to ask you for one favor. Could you forward this e-mail to the members of your campaign as the form of short invitation for them to participate in our campaign.

Kind regards,

Cezary Galan

[Merlin66]

The request is being distributed to all the spectroscopy groups...would be an ideal target and program for low res spectroscopes (300 or 600 l/mm gratings)

[NLO]

It would be good if many others joined in as well.

We only have low res equipement but are trying to do a comparison between current spectrum and those taken back in the 1900's with our historic equipement on glass plates.

[robin_astro]

Jeff is not correct when he says this campaign will be suitable for low resolution spectroscopy. (Jeff's area of expertise is photometry, not spectroscopy) Leading amateur spectroscopist Olivier Thizy has contacted the PI Cezary Galan direct for clarification. Here is his reply

Best Regards

Robin

www.threehillsobservatory.co.uk

Hello Olivier,

We are pleased to welcome a new member of the campaign. If you don't mind,

I include you to the list of "Members & Contacts" on the webpage. Please

look if everything is correct and let me know if you want to something be

changed or added.

We will have a lot of time to exchange our experiences during 2 years of

cooperation in the course of the campaign. AZ Cas is a some challenge for

spectroscopic observations because it is by 6 mag fainter than epsilon

Aurigae. Perhaps it could be good test for your spectrographs working with

small telescopes.

We know yours products - we are using eShel spectrograph with our 60/90 cm

Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope (R~11000). I am doing observations of AZ Cas

using this instrument right now :-).

The spectra with resolution R~1000 in visible mode are not interesting to

us, however the spectra with this resolution in near-IR domain could be

perhaps interesting on the condition however they would be in fluxes.

regards,

Cezary

[NLO]

Thank you for the information Robin. We are still working on increasing our gamma cas information so will focus on this and maybe look for another to begin as well.

kate