[Aavso-photometry] Var Her 04 - Update, Tips and More

[Aaron Price]

 BVR Light Curve...
  I have updated the light curves at http://www.aavso.org/news/her04.shtml
Included is a beautiful light curve of the rapid fade with data by Donn
Starkey, R data from Mike Koppelman and BVR data from Arne. (Arne, I think
you are now famous enough to need only one name.:)

 Get Ready For Friday...
  A perfect complement to last night's wonderful filtered observations
would be observations of it during the next rise as the first echo
outburst begins. If the outburst follows the WZ Sge outburst then the rise
should occur sometime Friday evening and last about half a day or a little
less. However, it is is similar to EG Cnc's outburst then the rise may not
occur until early next week. So stay alert through the entire weekend.
Please observe filtered if you can! At least it is a weekend so no more
dream-like hazes of exhaustion at work the next day.

 It's Getting Faint...
  Now that Var Her 04 is dimming more care needs to be taken in your
photometry. Don't be afraid to take longer exposures and stack images if
needed. Tonight and tomorrow we don't need filters. Precision is what is
most important here. However, if the Moon presents a major problem for you
then you may want to try an Rc filter and see if that can cut down the
moonlight background.  Also, Arne has warned us about Var Her 04's
companion 5arcsec due east. He recommends to use either a large aperture
that includes this companion, or else use apertures less than 8arcsec
diameter.

 Possible Field Variable Info...
 Further observations of the possible variable in the field of Var Her 04
reveal no additional evidence of intranight variability. It is possible
that the excessive redness of the star caused problems with unfiltered
photometry or that it is an Algol type eclipsing binary with an eclipse
amplitude of 0.1 magnitudes. Regardless of its nature, it should be
avoided as a check star. In general, always use other comparison stars as
check stars if possible since their variability has at least been vetted
somewhat.

 g'luck...

Aaron