RZ Cas lightcurve and orbital period variations
2018 May 19
A binary star model for RZ Cas is fitted to a set of high quality electronic magnitude observations of recent minima, deriving in the process some of the parameters of the system. This lightcurve is then fitted to raw observational data from the BAA, AAVSO, AFOEV and VSOLJ in order to determine the times of minimum. These observed times of minimum supplemented by data from the Lichtenknecker database are then compared to expected times and are shown to be consistent with several significant long-term changes in the period, together with other changes. In addition the model curve is used to calculate the expected accuracy of times of minimum derived from observational data of varying quality. Several CCD time series are displayed showing variability of the lightcurve near minimum, and a suggestion of delta-Scuti type variation.
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