PQ And in very rare outburst

[JeremyS]

I just sent the follow email alert to BAA members about this dwarf nova in outburst. Note this is a rare event and presents a real challenge due to the location of this star in the sky:

"The dwarf nova PQ And has been reported to be in outburst at mag 10.5 on May 28.776 by Kenji Hirosawa  (Aichi, Japan). This means that it is some 9 magnitudes above its usual quiescence of 19.5.

PQ And has only been seen in outburst once before when Dave McAdam discovered it as Nova And 1988. So this is its first appearance for 32 years.

Gary Poyner managed to catch PQ And in the dawn sky this morning: May 29.088  at a visual mag of 10.5 using a 22cm Dobsonian on a wobbly table. Eddy Muyllaert of Belgium also observed it visually this morning at mag 10.3, May 29.080.

All observations of this rare outburst are urgently required, both visual and CCD. Time resolved CCD photometry would also be very helpful. It’s of course tricky to observed given the location in the dawn sky.

Dwarf novae are compact binary stars and as they evolve their orbital period gets shorter until it reaches a minimum around 75 to 80 minutes. The orbital period of PQ And is 80.6 mins. There is some speculation that this might be a rare example of a “period bouncer” in which the system has evolved through the minimum and is increasing.

PQ And is located at RA 02 29 29.55 Dec +40 02 40.0 (J2000.0). A finder chart is available from the AAVSO website

Do try to observe this very rare event. At 10th mag it is visible in a small telescope. You might have to wait 32 years for the next one!"
 

[JeremyS]

The BAA Variable Star Section has a web page for PQ And where we'll provide updates. There's also a bit of info about the 1988 outburst.

[andrew s]

Nice to see your observation in the show us you kit at night thread. Well done too low for Castillejar. 

Regards Andrew 

[jambouk]

I managed to image this rare event on the morning of the 30th May with my Celestron C11 and a Canon 6D at prime focus. Had the photometry data extracted from my images by a friend, and have submitted the results to the BAA Variable Star Section who are very appreciative as there are relatively few observations. I'm aiming to capture more images / photometry data in the next week or two. The outburst is currently about magnitude 11 and indicated on the image below by the overly large yellow arrow; the FoV is about 45x30 arcminutes, and is a 15 second exposure at ISO 800.

[JeremyS]

2 hours ago, jambouk said:

I managed to image this rare event on the morning of the 30th May with my Celestron C11 and a Canon 6D at prime focus.

Excellent, James. There are very few observations of this outburst so far as it's poorly placed. That makes your observations even more valuable. I hope you will be able to continue observing it. If we are lucky, the outburst might last a couple of weeks and it would be really helpful to get a decent light curve of the object.

[markse68]

I had a look for it tonight once the clouds had cleared but the seeing wasn’t good. Has it dimmed now? I could only make out that there was something there- even averted vision wasn’t clear what but if it was brighter than the 2 other stars near it then I might have detected it’s photons  😉 On the plus side while locating it, isn’t Almach a beautiful double! Rivalling Albireo for colour but nice difference in sizes and low altitude giving them a pleasing fireyness

 

Edited June 7, 2020 by markse68