Special Notice #213: Request for observations of high-mass X-ray binaries

HMXB campaign extended until further notice. It has been updated numerous times and covered in AAVSO Alert Notices 348, 354, and 377, and in AAVSO Special Notices #118, #129, #143, #213, and #220.

July 30, 2010: Dr. Gordon Sarty, University of Saskatchewan, Canada, requests our continuing assistance in his ongoing observations of High Mass X-ray Binaries (HMXBs). Dr. Sarty provides the following text for the current request:

Please obtain BVRI photometry (or any subset thereof, VI preferred) of the following four HMXBs for the time period of our radial velocity observations to be made with the 72-inch Plaskett telescope at the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory (DAO) from now until August 29. The actual scheduled observing times are July 29 - August 2 and August 25-29 if you want to get observations that are simultaneous with ours. Simultaneous observations are very useful. All observations of the HMXBs at any time are valuable. The targets for this DAO observing campaign are:

Name         R.A.(2000) Dec.(2000)    Mag LPH no. AUID

1936+541     19:32:52.3  +53:52:45.5  9.8  115    000-BDC-070
J2030.5+47   20:30:30.9  +47:51:50.7  9.3  123    000-BDC-306
2202+501     22:01:38.2  +50:10:04.7  8.8  127    000-BFS-469
2206+543     22:07:56.2  +54:31:06.4  9.9  128    000-BDC-531
0140+60B     01:47:00.2  +61:21:23.7 11.3  029    000-BCY-758

The DAO is located in Victoria, B.C., Canada, and the observer will be Dave Balam. Interested AAVSO observers should concentrate on one star per night, all night, for as many nights as you can devote, while Dave is observing at DAO.

For more background information on the HMXB project, please see
our JAAVSO article at

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007JAVSO..35..327S

Charts may be downloaded at:

http://homepage.usask.ca/~ges125/Astronomy/LPH115_aavso.pdf
http://homepage.usask.ca/~ges125/Astronomy/LPH123_aavso.pdf
http://homepage.usask.ca/~ges125/Astronomy/LPH127_aavso.pdf
http://homepage.usask.ca/~ges125/Astronomy/LPH128_aavso.pdf
http://homepage.usask.ca/~ges125/Astronomy/LPH029_aavso.pdf


Please submit your observations directly to the AAVSO International Database and thanks once again for your ongoing coverage of the HMXBs.

Please direct any questions about this observing campaign to Dr. Gordon Sarty at gordon.sarty@usask.ca .


This AAVSO Special Notice was issued by Elizabeth O. Waagen, AAVSO.