Friends,
At the AAVSO meeting, I announced that the AAVSO is part of the BRITE-Constellation Ground Based Observations Team (GBOT), supporting cutting-edge science from the BRITE satellites. Please find the first targets in need of ground-based photometry under:
https://www.aavso.org/aavso-brite-targets
Each target has requests for both photometry and spectra. Other than short-term variations, the team is interested in the long-term behavior of those systems and/or any peculiar (non-periodic) behavior that may be revealed in the data. For example, eclipsing binaries could exhibit photometric variations due to chromospheric activity (flares), which can have amplitudes of more than a tenth of a magnitude. In other words: all observations are very welcome.
Please submit all photometry to the AID. Spectra can be submitted directly to Dr Konstanze Zwintz (konstanze.zwintz@uibk.ac.at). We will be updating the web page with appropriate targets every ~4 months or when we get new requests from the BRITE team.
More information on the BRITE-constellation can be found under:
http://www.univie.ac.at/brite-constellation/html/constellation.html
Happy observing!
Best wishes – clear skies,
Stella.
Hi Stella,
these would appear to be challenging targets for photometry. Most have very small amplitudes according to VSX but you mentioned the possibility of longer-term and/or peculiar behavior so I'll try to observe one or two of them when the weather decides to cooperate.
On a related topic, is it possible to have specific targets added to the BRITE observing campaign? When you were in New Zealand last year we discussed the Variable Stars South project on QZ Car. With a period of ~5.999 days it is impossible to observe the entire light curve from a single longitude in a single season. Space-based photometry would be extremely valuable. At V mag ~6.2 to ~6.5 QZ Car is a little fainter than typical BRITE targets but still accessible. Any advice about who to contact would be much appreciated. Cheers,
Mark
What does "better than 0.01" actually mean in regard to the photometry? Accuracy or precision or both?
Hello Observers
I am sharing my observation plan for PT Pup for the next few nights/weeks, in hopes of getting you to consider adding this object to your observations. It looks like a Campaign that can use visual, ccd, pep and Hi Res Spectra (and space observations) all together. It will fit in an "F" chart field (18.5 arc min). I am going to time series it, with the 87 as the ref/comp star. As Stella put in an email to me recently;
"For very small amplitude stars, and relevant visual observations, the data can be used in a typical crowdsourcing mode: when many observers observe the same object at the same time, their average (or median) binned magnitudes showcase the underlying variations in the relevant light curve. This is how we use visual magnitudes in our legacy stars at the AAVSO to detect variations in quiescence magnitude of stars such as SS Cyg or GK Per."
To do this, we need lots of data--the more the better. Its up early evening, just to the east of Orion. I am going to be doing B and V as long as its clear. I am going to use 20 second cadence and defocus to keep the full well from overflowing. This should give the max SNR, avoid scintillation, and result in low error bars. Lets see if we can get it in flare mode!
How do you plan to observe it tonight? BTW: there are 7 other targets to choose from.
Gary
WGR
Update: I got on PT Pup early, it was air mass 2.2 and some low clouds interfereing, so I jumped on V0694 Mon for an hour or so. When I saw the first stint of data from that, decided to stay with it. Did 240 images of it until midnight. It was active. Will probably stay with it tonight also,
Gary
Friends,
New BRITE stars are online – excellent targets for our PEP, DSLR and visual observers. I hope you’ll give them a try; they can be found at:
https://www.aavso.org/aavso-brite-targets
The PIs are also asking for spectra; please send those directly to them (contact information is provided).
Thanks for all your work!
Best wishes – clear skies,
Stella.