eclipsing binary

July 14, 2005

The bright, long-period, eclipsing binary star epsilon Aurigae is predicted to begin its next eclipse late July or early August of 2009. The AAVSO is participating in a global campaign to record this eclipse as part of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 celebrations, organized by the Citizen Sky project (http://www.citizensky.org). Epsilon Aurigae is now past solar conjunction and has reappeared as a morning object.

October 19, 2012:  Dr. Noel Richardson (Universite de Montreal, formerly at Georgia State University) has requested monitoring of the Small Magellanic Cloud eclipsing binary HD 5980 (in Tucana) as part of a multiwavelength campaign he is coordinating to study this unusual system. Dr. Richardson writes:

Just over one year ago, a small spacecraft called MOST began a month-long observing run on one of the most spectacular objects in Earth's skies, the beautiful Trapezium region at the heart of the Orion Nebula, M42.  My collaborators and I applied for and received this observing time to survey variability in this young stellar cluster -- partly to study the eclipsing binary BM Ori (theta 01 Orionis B), but also to survey as many young stars that we were able to using the unique capabilities of MOST.  Since then, I along with my collaborators -- our Director Arne H

September 8, 2011:

Jeff Hopkins (Hopkins Phoenix Observatory, Phoenix, AZ) communicates regarding the upcoming eclipse of the 4th-magnitude binary system zeta Aurigae. He writes:

The 2011 AAVSO Eclipsing Binary Ephemeris, prepared by Gerry Samolyk, is now available online at

http://www.aavso.org/eclipsing-binary-ephemerides

Good observing!

The AAVSO Eclipsing Binary Ephemeris provides the predicted time of mid-eclipse for eclipsing binaries in the AAVSO Eclipsing Binary observing program. These times appear in Universal Time in the body of the ephemeris table. The time is rounded to the nearest half hour, which provides sufficient accuracy to plan an observing session while, hopefully, leaving sufficient doubt about the exact time in order to eliminate anticipatory bias. The ephemeris is designed for use by observers at American longitudes.