AAVSO Special Notice #258
Request for monitoring of SS Cygni in support of European VLBI radio observations
October 13, 2011
As mentioned in AAVSO Alert Notice 445 on August 19, 2011, Dr. James
Miller-Jones (International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research,
Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia) and colleagues have a
multiwavelength campaign on the dwarf nova SS Cyg underway as a
follow-up to their very successful multiwavelength campaign on SS Cyg
in 2010 April (see AAVSO Special Notices #204 and 206 and the related
information page).
Shortly after we announced the follow-up campaign in August, SS Cyg
went into outburst and, thanks to your excellent coverage and
immediate notification to Headquarters, Dr. Miller-Jones and
colleagues were able to obtain excellent observations.
They have more time available, however, and would like to observe
SS Cyg again.
THE NEXT POSSIBLE OBSERVING WINDOW IS 2011 OCTOBER 17-18
with subsequent 2011 windows of November 23-24 and December 14-15.
Dr. Miller-Jones says, "Ideally we would like to know the state of
SS Cyg (particularly whether or not it is going into outburst) a
few days before each of these dates, to give us time to alert
the schedulers and get on the telescope if appropriate. We would
be extremely grateful for any assistance the AAVSO could provide.”
SS Cyg is the class prototype of the dwarf novae, and the brightest
dwarf nova in our skies. In quiescence, SS Cyg varies around V=12.0,
and will typically reach V=8.0 at maximum, although anomalous weak
outbursts are sometimes seen. SS Cyg last went into outburst 2011
August 24 (JD 2455797.6139, 11.3, R. King; 2455797.9875, 11.2, H.
Matsuyama); the outburst was a narrow one, lasting 10 days. The next
outburst may occur at any time. Observations brighter than m(vis)=11.0
should be reported as quickly as possible.
Observers are asked to increase their monitoring of SS Cyg at least
through December. Please report all observations as soon as is
practical. In the event of an outburst, please report your observations
as quickly as you can via WebObs, and also notify Dr. Matthew Templeton
and Elizabeth Waagen at AAVSO Headquarters (matthewt@aavso.org,
eowaagen@aavso.org). Visual magnitude estimates are a fast and
effective means of monitoring SS Cyg; CCD observations are also useful,
but please reduce your frames and report your data as soon as possible
following an observing run. CCD time-series are not specifically
required for this project.
Coordinates for SS Cyg: RA 21:42:42.79 Dec +43:35:09.9 (J2000.0)
Charts for SS Cyg may be plotted using AAVSO VSP: http://www.aavso.org/vsp
This campaign is being followed on the AAVSO Observing Campaigns
page. For more information on this project, please see Dr. Miller-Jones'
website: http://www.astro.virginia.edu/xrb_jets
Please promptly report all observations to the AAVSO International
Database using the name "SS CYG".
This AAVSO Special Notice was compiled by Elizabeth O. Waagen.
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SUBMIT OBSERVATIONS TO THE AAVSO
Information on submitting observations to the AAVSO may be found at:
SPECIAL NOTICE ARCHIVE AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION
A Special Notice archive is available at the following URL:
http://www.aavso.org/special-notice-archive/
Subscribing and Unsubscribing may be done at the following URL:
http://www.aavso.org/observation-notification#specialnotices