October 2, 2015: Further to AAVSO Alert Notice 511, issued in March 2015, Dr. George Rieke (University of Arizona) and colleagues' campaign to monitor planetary debris disks for variability using the Spitzer Space Telescope continues. AAVSO observations are requested to rule out variability of the stars themselves.
The second segment of observations of the four targets takes place from now into January 2016 according to the schedule below.
October 1, 2015: Dr. George Wallerstein (University of Washington) has requested AAVSO assistance in monitoring 5 variable stars in Cygnus now through December 2015. He is working to complete the radial velocity curves for these stars, and needs optical light curves for correlation with the spectra he will be obtaining.
Discovery magnitude:
- Itagaki: 9.9 U (CCD, using a 180-mm focal length camera lens)
- Takao: 10.5 U
- Nakamura: magnitude not reported (135-mm focal length camera lens)
September 2, 2015: AAVSO observer Adolfo Darriba Martinez y Oscar Ortuño (DAM, Observatorio Las Casqueras, Madrid, Spain) reports that the blazar S5 1803+78 has brightened significantly.
S5 1803+78, which is magnitude 16-17 V at minimum, is currently magnitude 14.237 V (LPAB, P. Lampens-Vancauteren (Ukkel, Belgium).
Previous outbursts are recorded in the AAVSO International Database in November 2007, February 2012, and September 2014.
August 26, 2015: Roque Ruiz-Carmona (Ph.D. candidate, Institute of Mathematics, Astrophysics and Particle Physics, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands) has requested AAVSO assistance with his campaign to observe (a new set of) 17 cataclysmic variables (CVs) with the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) next week.
August 20, 2015: Prof. Simon Jeffery (Armagh Observatory; Trinity College Dublin) has requested photometric monitoring of the pulsating helium and zirconium-rich hot subdwarf LS IV -14 116 in support of upcoming HST and VLT/UVES spectroscopy. AAVSO observations will supplement photometry due to be obtained with the SAAO 1.0-m and IAC 0.8-m telescopes from 18 August to 2 September 2015. Photometry is requested beginning immediately through 2 September.
