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Proceedings for the 28th Annual Conference of the Society for Astronomical Sciences Joint Meeting of The Society for Astronomical Sciences The American Association of Variable Star Observers Symposium on Telescope Science Editors: Brian D. Warner Jerry Foote David A. Kenyon Dale Mais May 19-21, 2009 Big Bear Lake, CA Disclaimer The acceptance of a paper for the SAS proceedings can not be used to imply or infer an endorsement by the Society for Astronomical Sciences of any product, service, or method mentioned in the paper. Published by the Society for Astronomical Sciences, Inc. First printed: May 2009 Table of Contents Table of Contents PREFACE CONFERENCE SPONSORS SUBMITTED PAPERS AAVSO LONG-PERIOD VARIABLE SECTION UPDATE KATE HUTTON, MIKE SIMONSEN 1 BL ERI: A CONTACT BINARY SYSTEM LEE SNYDER 5 THE ADDICTIVE PROPERTIES OF OCCULTATIONS JOHN MENKE 9 HIGH RESOLUTION ASTEROID PROFILE BY MULTI CHORD OCCULTATION OBSERVATIONS SCOTT DEGENHARDT 19 LIGHTWEIGHT MIRROR DEVELOPMENTS RUSSELL GENET, ANDREW AURIGEMA, STEVE BADGER, MEL BARTELS, K. LISA BRODHACKER, RODOLFO CANESTRARI, PETER CHEN, MIKE CONNELLEY, DAVID DAVIS, MAURO GHIGO, GREG JONES, TONG LIU, ERIC MENDEZ, GIOVANNI PARESCHI, TERRY RICHARDSON, DAVID ROWE, JOSH SCHMIDT, KIRAN SHAH, EFRAIN VILLASENOR 27 OPTIMIZING OPTO-MECHANICAL PERFORMANCE USING SIMPLE TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES TOM KRAJCI 35 ENHANCEMENTS TO THE SENTINEL FIREBALL NETWORK VIDEO SOFTWARE WAYNE WATSON 43 SLOAN-R' PHOTOMETRY OF COMET 17P/HOLMES BEYOND 3.8 AU: AN OBSERVING METHODOLOGY FOR SHORT-PERIOD COMETS FAR FROM PERIHELION RICHARD MILES 51 SPECTRASHIFT EXOPLANET TRANSIT SEARCH PROJECT: 40,000 LIGHT CURVES AND COUNTING THOMAS G. KAYE, DAVID HEALY 63 THINKING OUT LOUD: AN OPTICAL SETI CAMPAIGN SUITABLE FOR AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS? JAMES EDWARDS 67 THE EARLY HISTORY OF PHOTOMETRIC OBSERVATIONS OF ASTEROIDS MADE AT TABLE MOUNTAIN OBSERVATORY JAMES W. YOUNG, ALAN W. HARRIS 77 WHAT’S NEXT IN ASTEROID PHOTOMETRY? GARY A. VANDER HAAGEN 85 Table of Contents SLOW ROTATING ASTEROIDS: A LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT BRIAN D. WARNER 91 EXTENDING A SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY OF MAIN BELT ASTEROIDS WITH MICRO TELESCOPES: A PROOF OF CONCEPT PROJECT ROBERT STEPHENS, RALPH MEGNA 101 REVISITING THE O’CONNELL EFFECT IN ECLIPSING BINARY SYSTEMS NICHOLAS J. WILSEY, MATTHEW M. BEAKY 107 USING A WEB CAM CCD TO DO V BAND PHOTOMETRY REV. PAUL TEMPLE 117 INTRINSIC VARIABILITY OF BETA LYRAE OBSERVED WITH A DIGITAL SLR CAMERA DONALD F. COLLINS, ANESH PRASAI 121 AN INTENSIVE CCD PHOTOMETRY CAMPAIGN TO OBSERVE DW URSAE MAJORIS DAVID BOYD, BORIS GAENSICKE 129 NEW OBSERVATIONS OF THREE LYRA VARIABLES JERRY D. HORNE 137 EPSILON AURIGAE, 2009: THE ECLIPSE BEGINS – OBSERVING CAMPAIGN STATUS ROBERT E. STENCEL, JEFFREY L. HOPKINS 149 EPSILON AURIGAE HYDROGEN ALPHA EMISSION LINE VARIATION: THE HORN DANCE JEFFREY L. HOPKINS, ROBERT E. STENCEL 157 THE 2009 ECLIPSE OF EE CEPHEI: AN EDUCATIONAL AND COLLABORATIVE JOURNEY JOHN PYE, LAUREN ELDER, JEFF HOPKINS 171 THE LIGHTCURVE OF UZ SGE ROBERT K. BUCHHEIM 181 POSTER PRESENTATIONS PHOTOMETRY OF VARIABLE STARS USING A LENSLESS SCHMIDT CAMERA JEFF HORNE 191 OVER-CONTACT BINARY GR TAURI LEE SNYDER 197 DATA MINING TECHNIQUES APPLIED TO THE GNAT LIBRARY ARCHIVE ERIN M. CRAINE, 201 TIME DELAY INTEGRATION: A WIDE-FIELD SURVEY TECHNIQUE ROBERT LA POINTE, E. HILL, L. LEIMER, K. MCMILLIAN, A. MILLER, A PRINDLE 207 Preface Preface It takes many people to have a successful conference, starting with the Conference Committee. This year the regular committee members are: Lee Snyder Robert Stephens Robert Gill Jerry Foote Cindy Foote Margaret Miller Brian D. Warner Dave Kenyon Dale Mais There are many others involved in a successful conference. The editors take time to note the many volunteers who put in considerable time and resources. We also thank the staff and management of the Northwoods Resort in Big Bear Lake, CA, for their efforts at accommodating the Society and our activities. Membership dues alone do not fully cover the costs of the Society and annual conference. We owe a great debt of gratitude to our corporate sponsors: Sky and Telescope, Software Bisque, Santa Barbara Instruments Group, PlaneWave Instruments, and Apogee Instruments, Inc. Finally, there would be no conference without our speakers and poster presenters. We thank them for making the time to prepare and present the results of their research. Brian D. Warner Jerry Foote Dale Mais Dave Kenyon Preface Conference Sponsors Conference Sponsors The conference organizers thank the following companies for their significant contributions and financial support. Without them, this conference would not be possible. Apogee Instruments, Inc. Manufacturers of astronomical and scientific imaging cameras http://www.ccd.com Santa Barbara Instruments Group Makers of astronomical instrumentation http://www.sbig.com Sky Publishing Corporation Publishers of Sky and Telescope Magazine http://skyandtelescope.com Software Bisque Developers of TheSky Astronomy Software and the Paramount Telescope Mount http://www.bisque.com PlaneWave Instruments Makers of the CDK line of telescopes http://www.planewaveinstruments.com:80/index.php Conference Sponsors Submitted Papers Hutton/Simonsen – AAVSO LPV Section Update AAVSO Long-Period Variable Section Update Kate Hutton 969 E. Mountain St., Pasadena CA 91104 [email protected] Mike Simonsen AAVSO, C.E. Scovil Observatory 2615 S. Summers Rd., Imlay City MI [email protected] Abstract The first of the new AAVSO “sections” is the LPV section. This section has decided to “own” SR, L & RV stars, as well as Miras. There is an LPV Section Wiki, and there has been much discussion on the AAVSO discussion e-mail list regarding the type and number of stars that should be included in the AAVSO LPV Programs. One of our first major tasks is to produce a list of stars to recommend to observers, stars for which the observers can feel that their work will be of value in the present & future age of automated surveys. The core of the list is the AAVSO "legacy stars". The legacy stars will include those stars that have a long & rich history with the AAVSO (more than 15,000 AAVSO observations in 50+ years) and those that have been the subject of many scientific publications. The remaining LPV program stars will include those with at least 5,000 observations in the AAVSO International database, those too bright for most surveys, those that are in fields too crowded for the surveys, plus any that are specifically requested by researchers. The AAVSO Binocular Program will include stars with minima brighter than about 10th magnitude, visible in binoculars for the majority of their cycles. 1. Introduction Until the past couple of decades, the bulk of ob- servations on the LPV's were visual observations, “The debt to our ancestors for the observa- with a small percentage of photoelectric photometry tions they made to our benefit, we can pay (PEP) thrown in. The Mira stars especially are ideally only by doing the same for our ancestors.” suited for visual observations, because of the large amplitude of their variation and their long period. – Ejnar Hertzsprung, 1961 Estimates can be made of the visual magnitude based on a sequence of comparison stars provided by The long-period variable stars, in particular the AAVSO Headquarters; once a week for each star is Mira stars, have been the mainstay of the American totally sufficient. The long time period covered by Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) for the observations allows changes in the light curve most of its long history. During the years leading up and sometimes, even the period to be tracked. Our to the AAVSO's founding in 1911, the number of “classic” picture of the visual variable star observer known variable stars was increasing much faster than generally involves a Mira star in the field of the tele- the ability of professional astronomers to observe scope. them and keep track of their light curves. This prob- So why has this picture changed? Many of the lematic situation lead Harvard College Observatory “classic” visual telescopes now have CCD's attached Director Edward C. Pickering and William Tyler to them. Or, in some cases, the telescopes take the Olcott to form the AAVSO, an organization to pro- observations and only wake up the astronomer when mote amateur monitoring of these stars. something goes wrong or an outburst of a cataclys- Many of the AAVSO's "classic" stars have tens mic variable is detected! AAVSO Headquarters ac- of thousands of observations, stretching over many cepts all the high-tech and the low-tech observations. decades. Based on tables prepared by Matthew The big challenge to the LPV tradition is the on- Templeton at AAVSO headquarters the record holder set of “the surveys”: professional automated surveys is R Leo, with 69,179 observations as of last summer. of the all the variable stars in the sky on a regular Omicron Ceti, Mira herself, only had 63,676 observa- basis, such as every few days, for an indefinite period tions. (The most popular star with AAVSO observers of time. ASAS (the All-Sky Automated Survey) is is not an LPV; it is the dwarf nova SS Cygni.) the prime example. ASAS data for stars south of +28 degrees declination is publicly available. 1 Hutton/Simonsen – AAVSO LPV Section Update A question raised many times by AAVSO ob- ondary priority to observers making weekly ob- servers is: How will these automated surveys affect servations of LPVs. the AAVSO? In this discussion, we ask only the smaller question of how the automated surveys will The programs star list consists of: affect the LPV Section of the AAVSO? We recognize that there are many types of ob- MIRA: 267 M or M servers contributing. Some observers enjoy sitting out SR: 6 SR or SR:, 29 SRA or SRA:, 53 SRB or under the sky, making visual estimates. Some enjoy SRB:, 11 SRC or SRC:, 8 SRD or SRD: the technical challenge of the pursuit of accuracy L: 12 LB or LB:, 3 LC or LC: with the CCD.