V0973 Cep HADS light curve

[7170]

Below is my attempt last night at V0973 Cep. The range is 12.2 - 12.6 V (AVVSO ) with a period of 0.08063046 d  (116.10786 minutes). In total 872 subs, at 15s each over a period of just over 4 hours.

I have estimated the period at 0.08056 (116.005 minutes), so close to the aavso source. It is hard to conclude on max/min magnitude, but I estimate from the shape of the plot  12.38 - 12.79 T-G.

A plotting of the magnitude vs phase is below.

Looking at other examples on AVVSO the maxima at -0.5 tends to be slightly higher than the one at 0.5, and the mimima at 0 is higher than at 1. So the shape is there, but to be honest I am a little disappointed with the results.  There is quite a bit of noise and is not as smooth as I would have hoped for.

Scrolling through the subs on AstroImageJ at speed there is the tell tail pattern of very thin clouds moving over at certain times which is what I feared when I went out to shutdown from looking at the clarity of the moon. There are of course the obligatory contrails and satellite trails in the subs too. 😀 I suspect the main issue is very thin clouds (despite it looking beautifully clear during the evening), but there is maybe something else causing a problem too that I need to think about more. 

It is a nicely positioned target with a good magnitude difference to detect so well worth a try -  with the added bonus of being able to get a complete phase curve in one evening (weather permitting).