IY UMa - Superhumps

[coatesg]

A while back I'd chatted to @Helen about trying to schedule some items for the Faulkes/LCOG telescopes to use up some allowance. 

IY UMa has been reported as in superoutburst (and cloudy here...), so decided to schedule up a time resolved series to look for superhumps - the request didn't go on for quite as long as I would have liked (it did 72 out of 120 90sec exposures), but I still seemed to grab a nice curve - a longer run would give the two peaks and hence the orbital period, but unfortunately, the request stopped and didn't complete (probably scheduling - maybe there's a way of getting all the observations in one block?)

Here's the output graph (with two comp stars plotted (Magnitudes in V band - was taken with an SBIG 6303 on one of the 0.4m SCT from Teide, Tenerife - https://lco.global/observatory/0.4m/)

 

Edited May 2, 2019 by coatesg

[JeremyS]

41 minutes ago, coatesg said:

Here's the output graph (with two comp stars plotted (Magnitudes in V band - was taken with an SBIG 6303 on one of the 0.4m SCT from Teide, Tenerife

Very nice Graeme - looks like you have got superhumps and an eclipse.

[Helen]

@coatesg  That's nice Graeme!  There can be a challenge with getting a full run sometimes (I had the same issue with comet rotation observations), it can be scheduling or cloud/technical issues.  There is a way of upping the priority if there is an important event, but it 'costs' time (ie you give up a bit of  extra allocation for the priority).  Given the amount of headroom in the allocation that might be possible to get a nice complete run of a particularly interesting object.  Let me know if you'd like to pursue it and I can explain how to do it.

On the more general issue of what else might be imaged, the feedback from the FT team is that they are looking for data sets which can be used in resources (where the underlying physical aspects will be explored and described).  These resources are likely to range from simple plotting of already measured data, through to doing the photometry, plotting the graphs, looking at 'examples' of different variability and determining which ones fits the data, and finally making measurements based on the graph characteristics.  

So data sets that will show clearly the varying profiles of different types of variability would be great (including short period and long period etc).  Data sets taken on different telescopes, and/or potentially with different filters (where variability might also include colour) would also be good.  Students could see how different scopes affect the results.

What would also be very useful is getting a list (and demo observations) of stars with different periods., visible at different times of year. This would allow FT to say to teachers 'if you want a project where data collection can be completed over x hours/days/weeks in this month then try these'.

Part of the challenge is to choose stars where the field isn't too crowded so that differential photometry is straightforward.  And of course choosing stars where the variability is big enough to be clearly seen in plots.

If as well as getting these data for schools they can be used for research/submitted, and you enjoy doing it too, then it really is win-win-win!

Have fun!

Helen