Jeremy Shears

Forum Replies Created

Viewing 20 posts - 441 through 460 (of 613 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • in reply to: Campaign to observe HR Lyrae #581184
    Jeremy Shears
    Participant

    We are now 3 months into the HR Lyr campaign and we have a nice light curve of this old nova developing. This can be seen on the VSS website. It has been brightening steadily over the last 3 weeks and is now as bright has it has been for a very long while. It will be interesting to see just how bright it becomes.

    Time-resolved photometry continues to show various humps and bumps in the light curve with an amplitude of ~0.15 mag. These appear to be fairly regular for a few cycles (~1.5 h), but they do not appear to be consistent. Moreover the shape of the bumps is quite variable.

    A couple of requests:

    1. Please keep the once-or twice per night snapshot photometry going. New observers are always welcome, of course.

    2. Some really long photometry runs (several hours) over a few nights would help us to understand the short term variations and see whether a coherent signal emerges. Late July onwards would be a good time for this as the nights are becoming longer.

    Many thanks to all the observers who have supply visual and CCD photometry:

    David Boyd, Walter Cooney, Pavol Dubovsky, Sjoerd Dufoer, Carlo Gualdoni, Kevin Hills, Steve Johnston, Mel Joslin, Paul Leyland, JH Mallett, Ian Miller, Ken Menzies, Martin Mobberley, Roger Pickard, Gary Poyner, Jeremy Shears, Dave Smith, Richard Sabo, Tonny Vanmunster, Ivan Walton

    Jeremy Shears

    Jeremy Shears
    Participant

    Good to hear you might be able to attend, Eric.

    I’m staying in the conference hotel in Grimbergen the Friday and Saturday nights. Which is probably just as well since Grimbergen is well-known for its Trappist beers.

    I wonder if anyone else is going from the UK.

    in reply to: Campaign to observe HR Lyrae #581114
    Jeremy Shears
    Participant

    Several hours, Grant, probably > 3 (there is a proposed period of 0.1 day, which could set the lower limit for t/series, but I’m doubtful about that). However, such long runs are not possible at these latitudes atm.

    in reply to: Campaign to observe HR Lyrae #581113
    Jeremy Shears
    Participant

    Thank you Stewart

    in reply to: Campaign to observe HR Lyrae #581063
    Jeremy Shears
    Participant

    Many thanks for getting a spectrum, Robin! I had feared the system might be a little too faint.

    in reply to: Campaign to observe HR Lyrae #581050
    Jeremy Shears
    Participant

    We are now one month into the campaign and, whilst it’s still early days, it’s good to see the first data coming in. Many thanks to: David Boyd, Walter Cooney, Sjoerd Dufoer, Ian Miller, Ken Menzies, Martin Mobberley, Roger Pickard and Gary Poyner.

    The star has varied between mag 15.4 and 16.2. Time series photometry by Roger Pickard and Ken Menzies has shown various humps and bumps in the light curve, but it’s too early to determine if they are periodic.

    With Lyra becoming more accessible in the evening sky, I hope that further observations will begin to flow in. Do feel to join in the campaign. We are looking for nightly snapshot photometry to determine the overall shape of the light curve and well as some multi-hour photometry runs to look for short-term periodicities.

    Further details about the campaign can be found here.

    in reply to: Something interesting by M88 #581009
    Jeremy Shears
    Participant

    Yes, I’m following it from my home observatory, Mike. I had it at mag 14.2 in an unfiltered CCD image last night (Apr 25 at 21.04 UT).

    Looks like I’m in for a few cloudy nights, so I hope you are able to be more successful from Arizona

    in reply to: A Life Time of Astronomical Observations #581003
    Jeremy Shears
    Participant

    Glad to hear Alan’s talk went down well and to see him looking so well. Wonderful to hear his experiences of a lifetime in astronomy – I’m looking forward to the video.

    in reply to: Lunar crater Blagg #580981
    Jeremy Shears
    Participant

    Thanks Bill. David Portree tells me we can expect some more images of the crater:

    “Stand by on that new Blagg crater image – tentative date is 4/25. We have the low-Sun image mosaic I used in the post and some high-Sun images that show mainly brightness variations – if all goes well, the new image (actually a pair taken on successive orbits) will be intermediate between the two, so we’ll see more of the Blagg crater floor and more secondary crater wall slump action (if it exists).”

    If I hear more, I’ll let you know.

    in reply to: Group Projects for Societies #580965
    Jeremy Shears
    Participant

    Lunar occultations could be an interesting project, especially to observe grazing occultations where several members of the AS could be spaced across/along the graze track. Could even be extended to asteroidal occultations.

    in reply to: Catch a flaring star #580956
    Jeremy Shears
    Participant

    That sounds an interesting project, Andrew. I’ll be very interested to see how you get on.

    Jeremy Shears
    Participant

    Many thanks for the reminder, David.

    I have now registered for the conference.

    I would be interested to learn if any other members will be travelling to the meeting.

    in reply to: Campaign to observe the cataclysmic variable HS 0229+8016 #580768
    Jeremy Shears
    Participant

    I have updated the light curve of this star today and it is available on the VSS website.

    In the 3 months of the campaign we have caught 11 of its small outbursts. There is a suggestion that they are stunted outbursts, similar to those seen in some novalike cataclysmic variables, including UU Aqr, in which only a part of the accretion disc goes into outburst.

    There is also a curious larger-than-normal fade around JD 2458520 (this was present in data from several observers).

    Many thanks to all out observers, the list of which has been growing steadily: Richard Sabo, Ken Menzies, Gary Poyner, David Boyd, Dave Smith, Ian Miller, David Storey, Sjoerd Dufoer, Martin Mobberley, James Boardman, George Fleming, Mel Joslin, William Kautter, Erik Schwendeman, Tamas Tordai and Mario Morales Aimar. Your data have provided a well-sample light curve which I am sure will yield useful results!

    The campaign was intended to last 3 months until the end of 2019 Feb, i.e. today. Thus will the campaign is officially ended, observations would also be appreciated after this time. Since this is a circumpolar object and continues to be well positioned for most northern observers. We would like one (or a few) observations per night to define the overall outburst light curve and whether there is a quiescence period between outbursts. In the meantime I will analyse the data received to date.

    A summary of what is known about the star and about the campaign is presented in the March edition of the BAA Variable Star Section Circular (page 15) which was issued today.

    in reply to: Sirius B #580732
    Jeremy Shears
    Participant

    That’s a really interesting and encouraging observation, David. 

    i see there is a report on observing the Pup in S&T this month and the author was successful with a 130 mm refractor, although I presume from a more southerly latitude.

    in reply to: Comet Section Meeting on Saturday, May 18 #580723
    Jeremy Shears
    Participant

    Owen,

    I’ve used Park-and-Ride facilities in York on a number of occasions and they are very good.

    Jeremy

    in reply to: Observatory Planning Permission #580692
    Jeremy Shears
    Participant

    my residence is in a designated conservation area and hence I needed planning permission for my 2.1 Pulsar observatory. Note the house itself is not listed – it is a contemporary construction.

    Before I submitted my application I spoke to the planning department and also to neighbours. The main concern was that the obsy should not be visually obtrusive. the planning officer asked whether the building would be white or silver as that might cause problems. I indicated that a number of colours were available including green.

    When the approval came through, the only stipulation was that the fibreglass must be green! I considered this to be a result. Since this colour was also favoured by my wife, I was able to proceed.

    in reply to: HD video meteor spectroscopy #580666
    Jeremy Shears
    Participant

    Very nice work Bill. Your initial experiments show that this is a very promising development. It will be interesting to see how a more sophisticated grating performs with the ZWO camera.

    in reply to: Campaign to observe the cataclysmic variable HS 0229+8016 #580656
    Jeremy Shears
    Participant

    An updated light curve is available on the VSS website.

    in reply to: Possible lunar impact #580626
    Jeremy Shears
    Participant

    There is a paper on this impact on ArXiv

    in reply to: Sky and Telescope #580596
    Jeremy Shears
    Participant

    Front cover of my first S&T. Got on the last day of the Christmas hols in Jan 1974 at the Old Royal Greenwich Observatory

Viewing 20 posts - 441 through 460 (of 613 total)