Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 92:338-344, June 1980
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Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 92:338-344, June 1980 MULTIFILTER PHOTOMETRY AND POLARIMETRY OF NOVA CYGNI 1978 (V1668 CYGNI) W. BLITZSTEIN, D. H. BRADSTREET, B. J. HRIVNAK, A. B. HULL, AND R. H. KOCH Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics and Flower and Cook Observatory University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia R. J. PFEIFFER Department of Physics, Trenton State College, Trenton Flower and Cook Observatory, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia AND A. P. GALATOLA Space Division, General Electric Company, Valley Forge Received 1979 November 12, revised 1980 March 3 The results from more than 2700 filtered photoelectric observations of Nova Cyg 1978, obtained at the Flower and Cook Observatory, are summarized. The nova's decline through about 5 magnitudes is documented and amalgamated with similar observations already published by other groups. Variability on time scales up to 0.08 day and with peak-to- peak amplitudes up to 0^13 were common. No short-term periodicity was found. In the two-color plane the variability of the color indices is highly nonthermal and perhaps shows an inflection of slope about the time that dust was reported from IR observations by another group. A distance of 3 kpc is suggested. A few linear polarization measures, taken before dust formation, are listed. From the large interstellar component, a net intrinsic polarization is derived for the post-dust stages. Key words: novae—photometry—polarimetry I. The Photometric Observations umn lists the interval of observation, the second, third, Nova Cygni 1978 was observed on 20 nights with the and fourth columns give, respectively, the number of Pierce-Blitzstein simultaneous two-channel, pulse-count- measures, the nightly average, and the minimum stan- ing photometer mounted on the 38-cm refractor of the dard deviation of a single magnitude difference calcu- Flower and Cook Observatory. The comparison star was lated from the actual pulse counts on the assumption of BD +43° 4012 (SAO 51194). Since the nova and com- Poisson statistics, all for the red filter. The corresponding parison star are so close together on the sky, the correc- parameters for the green and blue observations appear in tions for the instantaneous differential extinction were the last six columns of the table. Figure 1 shows the tem- always small. Counting times were 0.0004 or 0.0005 day, poral variations of the differential light and color-index depending on the decay stage of the nova. The diameter curves. of each diaphragm was 60^, and great care was taken to Standardized photoelectric observations have been avoid field stars when foreground sky brightness was published by Baldinelli (1978), Bruch (1979), de Roux measured. (1978), Giuricin, et al. (1978), Lindgren (1979), Mallama The detectors are RCA 4509 photomultipliers (similar and Skillman (1979), Margrave {l91Sa,b,c,d,), and Mattei to commercially available RCA 8645 photocells), and TABLE I each is equipped with broad-band red, green, and blue filters cut from the same stocks. The natural system char- Natural System Characteristics of the Pierce-Blitzstein acteristics for the photometer are summarized in Table I for an unreddened AO V star. With the present detectors, Photometer for an Unreddened AO V Star neither channel of the photometer has been standardized to the UBV system. More than 2700 observations have been obtained, Filter λ er,-. 1 FWHM nearly equally divided among the three bandpasses. It is Red 651θΧ 86θΧ impossible to publish all these data but they exist as File IAU(27), RAS-60 in the RAS library (Breger 1979). Table Green 5330 780 II summarizes our available photometry: the first col- Blue 4330 720 © Astronomical Society of the Pacific · Provided by the NASA Astrophysics Data System NOVA CYGNI 1978 339 TABLE II Summary of Differential Observations, (Nova Cyg 78 - ΒΓΗ-43Ο4012) (J.D.(hel.)-2443000.) n_ Am η Am Δι a r r r g g % b 766.5968 - 766.6139* 8 -3,094 +0.022 8 -2.239 +0.018 -1.983 +0.011 767.5263 - 767.6598a 23 -3.016 .016 55 -2.067 .018 47 -1.969 .015 772.5332 - 772.7960 77 -2.393 .011 87 -1.251 .011 72 -1.234 .006 773.7174 - 713.1552* 12 -2.223 .028 14 -1.056 .029 14 -1.012 .023 776.5123 - 776.5668 25 -2.093 .011 27 -0.802 .011 27 -0.808 .007 777.6107 - 777.7835 75 -2.089 .008 75 -0.792 .007 75 -0.753 .004 778.5489 - 778.7739 81 -2.122- .008 79 -0.841 .007 75 -0.789 .004 780.5319 - 780.5835 21 -1.818 .008 21 -0.363 .007 19 -0.444 .004 791.5075 - 791.6574 72 -1.049 .007 68 +0.258 .008 82 +0.313 .005 797.4886 - 797.6662 76 -0.789 .010 82 +0.773 .013 94 +0.706 .009 799.6936 - 799.7226 10 -0.669 .012 11 +0.790 .015 9 +0.673 .010 802.5896 - 802.6491* 13 -0.516 .007 13 +0.906 .008 7 +1.045 .005 804.5131 - 804.6751 57 -0.454 .009 45 +1.133 .011 64 +0.994 .007 806.6775 - 806.7045 11 -0.366 .008 11 +1.159 .010 11 +1.008 .006 809.4942 - 809.6526 59 -0.344 .008 60 +1.075 .010 61 +0.933 .005 810.4860 - 810.6642 70 -0.327 .008 69 +1.163 .011 71 +1.028 .006 811.4834 - 811.6574 67 -0.257 .008 66 +1.245 .010 66 +1.094 .006 813.6517 - 813.6814 11 -0.169 .009 12 +1.401 .013 12 +1.252 .007 822.5035 - 822.6325 57 +0.142 .010 58 +1.789 .019 64 +1.522 .010 832.4696 - 832.6316 59 +0.258 + .010 60 +1.921 + .018 61 +1.652 + .008 * : variable transparency (1978). These measures appear in Figure 1 and are re- It is not surprising that short-term variability, as in- ferred to the right-side ordinates. By personal judgment, dicated in the example of Figure 2, exists for several the Pennsylvania observations were placed in register nights. In order to test objectively for the incidence of with the standardized observations, and it is only in the variability, each filtered data set for each night was test- sense of this personally derived zero-point correction ed by the x2-statistic. The results of these calculations that the former observations can be referred to the right- are shown in Table III and may be summarized as fol- side ordinates. From previous and concurrent programs lows: 42 of the 60 data sets, designated by υ, show in- on main-sequence stars, it is known that the scales of the trinsic variability above the 99.95% confidence level; ten natural Pennsylvania and UBV systems differ by about data sets, designated by u:, are found to be variable in 1%. It is not known whether such a close correspondence the confidence interval 99.95% to 94%; eight short data exists for the emission-dominated radiation from a nova. sets, designated by dashes, are not shown to be variable In Figure 1 the open triangles represent photographic by the test. For all these calculations, the gauge variance estimates or observations to which neither zero point nor includes both the pulse-counting Poisson statistics and scale corrections have been applied. These are plotted in short-term atmospheric effects, which latter have been the figure only to indicate the timing of maximum light. estimated from the comparison-star measurements and As Mallama and Skillman have already noted, the light which increase the Poisson standard deviations by factors curve is that of a fast nova, and Pfau's (1976) t3 and 15- of 1.2, 1.2, and 2.8 for red, green, and blue, respectively. day calibrations yield MB ^ —8. No matter what the On two nights which are common to Pennsylvania and bolometric correction for an emission-dominated spec- Margrave data, the latter author also observed short- trum, this absolute magnitude exceeds the Eddington time-scale variability. For a third night in common. Mar- limit for a one solar-mass object. grave did not note short-term variability and the Penn- © Astronomical Society of the Pacific · Provided by the NASA Astrophysics Data System 340 BLITZSTEIN, BRADSTREET, HRIVNAK, HULL, KOCH, PFEIFFER, AND GALATOLA TABLE III -3 - 6 X2-Test for Short-Term Variability -2 - 7 Am. V J.D.(hel)- Am Am Am, 2443000 ^ i ^ -1 - 8 766 ν: ν: 0- 9 767 ν ν ν + 1 - ■10 772 ν ν ν + 2 . jll -H-2- 773 ν: ν ν: A(b-g) ■ -.2 ■ .0 .0 ' ^ *88 ¿ ΕB-V 776 ν ν: ν: +.2 -+.4 777 ν ν ν Δί'Λο- -+ .8 778 ν ν ν V-R + 1.4 - - +1.2 780 ν: ν ν -+1.6 + 1.8- 791 ν ν ν 770 790 810 830 797 ν: ν ν JDlhel.l -2443000. FlG. 1—From top to bottom the panels show the green light curve and 799 - ν: - two-color indices as a function of time. The Pennsylvania observations are represented by the filled circles whose ordinates appear as the left- 802 ν ν ν side scales. The open circles represent photoelectric observations and the open triangles photographic estimates or observations from other 804 ν ν ν stations. The right-side ordinate scales are described in the text. 806 - 809 ν ν ν 810 ν ν: ν Am 811 ν ν ν 813 - ν 822 ν ν ν 832 ν ν ν For any bolometric correction, the nova (if it is a 1 SA)(© object) remains above the Eddington limit on this night. For a given filter, the filtering duty cycle is of the or- der of 0.007 day.