July 13, 2016: Dr. Colin Littlefield (University of Notre Dame) and colleagues Drs. Peter Garnavich (Notre Dame), Erin Aadland (Minnesota State), and Mark Kennedy (University College Cork) have requested AAVSO assistance in monitoring the intermediate polar cataclysmic variable FO Aqr beginning immediately.
Dr. Littlefield, who with his colleagues recently published ATel #9216 and #9225, writes:
July 5, 2016: Further to AAVSO Alert Notice 539, Deanne Coppejans and colleagues request optical monitoring of the Z Cam dwarf nova RX And in support of their campaign to observe it with the Very Large Array (VLA) in their ongoing radio jet research.
Deanne writes in a post to the AAVSO Forum thread on this campaign: "We are going to try and catch RX And in quiescence again in the next three weeks. The optical coverage of it is still sparse, so any observations you take of it will be extremely useful."
The prototype of its class and characterized by random fadings from maximum light, 1544+28A R Coronae Borealis continues to fade in brightness. Observations reported to the AAVSO indicate that the present fading from its maximum visual magnitude of 6.0 began in early July 2007. Fading slowly to about magnitude 7.0 by July 17, it remained at that magnitude before continuing to fade again on July 22, since when it has declined more steeply, reaching magnitude 10.8 on August 6.
V5558 Sgr continues to brighten; recent reports from Neil Butterworth place this nova at V=6.5 or so. We recommend continued monitoring of this slow nova.
At V=6.5, this is an easy target for all observers, whether visual, PEP or CCD. The brightest comparison star on the current VSP chart is V=6.0, so given below is another, brighter, comparison star that we will add to the sequence in the next day or so:
AM Her has been in an extended faint state (V=15.4) for the past two years. Just over the last few days, we have seen observations that show AM Her increasing in brightness by about a magnitude. While flaring of this order has occurred before, we ask that observers raise the priority of AM Her observations to keep an eye on this latest activity. There is the potential for triggering satellite observations if AM Her is going into outburst.
Arne Henden
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SUBMIT OBSERVATIONS TO THE AAVSO
The slow nova V5558 Sgr appears to be close to orbrighter than m(vis) = 7.6, and brighter comparisonstars than the initial bright limit of the chartmay be required. If necessary, please use the two additional comparison stars for this object that may be obtained by plotting a 240-arcmin chart with VSP:
V5558 Sgr, a nova that went into outburst in April (see Special Notices 44 and 45), continues to increase in brightness. The last reports indicate that this nova has reached V=8.6, brightening by about 0.02mag per day. We have produced a new sequence, based on recent calibration from Sonoita Research Observatory along with nearby Tycho2 and GCPD stars. You can download this sequence as part of the VSP chart:
