[Aavso-photometry] Help with followup requested

[Sebastian Otero]

Patrick,

> So I contacted Bruce Gary at AXA who looked over my data and said that 
> the change in brightness was probably too large to have been made by  an 
> exo-planet but that it could have been made by a red dwarf  eclipsing 
> binary.
>
> He did some checking and said he could not find this EB (if that's  what 
> it is) had been reported before.


In fact there is no variable known at that position, you van always use VSX 
to check:
http://www.aavso.org/vsx/index.php


> We've had nothing but bad weather here since the night of the  "discovery" 
> so I'd appreciate it if others could occasionally have a  go at catching 
> this one in the act.


That's what archived data are useful for ;)
There are NSVS observations for this star (NSVS 7914114 and NSVS 5243445)
It is GSC 03063-01707 at 16 30 21.00 +38 19 10.3 (2000.0) (UCAC 2).

I analysed the data and found that it is in fact an uncatalogued EA-type 
eclipsing binary with the following elements:

HJD 2451465.65 + 0.74647 x E

Min I is 0.15 mag. deep in ROTSE-I magnitudes. Min II is barely visible 
(0.04 mag.) and at phase 0.5.

J-K colours are 0.47, which correspond to a K0 star.

You can try another eclipse with the above ephemeris.
If you plan to do further research and publish it, go ahead. You can also 
submit it to VSX combining the NSVS data and yours for an improved period 
determination.
I can do it if you want.

Great discovery, specially for the fact that you were expecting a transit 
and got an eclipse in a nearby star at the time of the predicted transit!

Best wishes,
Sebastian.