EC14012 Paper and DAMP05 Update

Hello everyone,

Good news!  The EC14012 paper is now available on astro-ph.  Here is
the link:  http://arxiv.org/pdf/1204.2558.pdf.
The paper will be coming out in the June edition of ApJ.

DAMP05 has started.  We've been observing GD165 to evaluate the star
for convective light curve fitting.  This is a
hot DA, and would help pin down the hot end of our convection plot
(Figure 17 in the EC14012 paper) where we only have G117-B15A
right now.  The star still has 2 major frequencies, at 120 and 193 s.
Both are mulitplets.  The 120 s multiplet seems very similar to
the previous published frequencies, but the 193 s multiplet is not yet
resolved!  Of course, we need more data!  Check out
the website to see the latest light curves and FTs.

Cheers,
Judi

News from the Director

Hello everyone,

The website is up for DAMP05 at
http://darc.physics.udel.edu/wet/damp05/phptools/index.php.  We are
still confirming a few sites, but it looks like things will start next
week and run until the beginning of May.  This is going to be a small
run to evaluate GD165 and its potential for light curve fitting.  The
secondary target is GD358 because it is fairly bright and  doesn't
need lots of coverage.  Unless of course, it changes this year:)  The
finder charts and observing instructions are available on the website.
 The information for uploading data to daedalus is the same as in the
past.  If anyone needs a reminder, let me know.

Two other bits of news:

Happily, the EC14012-1446 paper has been accepted for publication in
the Astrophysical Journal (tentatively for the June 10 edition).  It
should appear on astro-ph in a few days.  This
is very exciting.  The paper presents the FT and light curve fitting
for EC14012-1446, and raises some other interesting questions.  I hope
everyone will take a look.

Planning for the 8th Whole Earth Telescope Workshop is proceeding.  We
have been discussing a format which is more in line with the
"traditional" workshop.  We would spend a good deal
of the meeting focusing on a single star, with the idea of leaving
with the framework for a publication.  The suggested "focus" star is
G29-38, since it has a comprehensive, extensive data set of
photometry and spectroscopy and it impacts a broad range of fields,
from pulsation to disks. This part of the workshop would be open
discussion, focusing on the entire data set to address
questions of interest.  I think this sounds very exciting.  Please let
me know if you have any suggestions.

Cheers,
Judi

Delaware Military Academy

On March 27 I went to the Delaware Military Academy to talk to the
seniors and juniors about possible careers in astronomy.  I talked
to four separate classes.  They were all very interested and asked
lots of questions.  I need to brush up on my black hole theory!
Also had lots of questions about Jupiter and Venus, which are very
easy to see after sunset.

New Supernova

I heard about a new supernova that appeared in M95 around
March 16. It was a Type II supernova, which
is a massive star that has exploded. This galaxy is 37 million light
years away. It was sort of clear tonight for my observational
astronomy class from the University, so we used the 24 inch telescope
to capture this image of M95.
The arrow points to the supernova. It was sort of hazy, and M95 was
right above Wilmington, so the sky is kind of
rough. The other picture is an older image I found of M95 before the supernova.

Type II supernova

m95 old image

m95 color2

Future Astronomers

March 13 - James and I went to West Park Place school to do a star
party for the 4th grade classes.  James borrowed 4 portable Celestron
telescopes from the University.  The night was pretty clear and
quite warm. Jupiter, Venus and Mars were all easy to find.  There
were about 30 kids (plus quite a few parents:) there.  They all
had a great time looking through the telescopes.  Everyone loved
Jupiter with its moons, and you could see the polar cap on Mars.

DARC News, future plans, WET workshop in 2013

Hello everyone,

It has been a while since I've sent around an update.  Here's a
summary of what has been going on....

XCOV28 - this run holds the record for the number of targets covered!
We got good coverage for all of our targets.  For the DAs: the HS0507
FT is excellent (see attached).
The data set spans over 37 days.  HL Tau 76 also received good
coverage, especially at the end of the run. Its total light curve is
also over a month long.  We switched to G191-16 towards the end of the
run.  This star is a multiperiodic pulsator.  All three stars are
excellent candidates for light curve fitting. G132-16 is one of the
hotter pulsators we've looked at (12600 K).  We are hoping to use this
star, with G117-B15A, to pin down  convection on the hot end of the
instability strip.  Finally, my personal favorite for this run was
BPM31594.  This star is dominated by a main mode with a series of
harmonics, plus power near, but not precisely at,  the subharmonics.
It is also an excellent candidate for light curve fitting.
For the DBs: we obtained excellent coverage of EC04207.  This star is
dominated by a single mode with harmonics.  EC05221 turned out to be
an unstable pulsator, alot like R808.  The more data we added to its
light curve, the lower the FT amplitudes became.  We should definitely
re-observe this star at some point to see if it characteristics
change.

This run promises to add multiple new points to our map of convection
across both the DA and DB instability strips.

I have nearly finished with the referee report on the EC14012-1446
paper.  The report was very positive, with helpful suggestions.  I'm
planning on uploading he revised version
in a few days.  If anyone has any acknowledgements to add, please send
them to me.

Future plans:  we are planning a mini-campaign (DAMP05) for this
spring.  So far we have confirmed dates at Tubitak (April 19-28, May
10-12) and CTIO (May 7-16).  Our suggested
targets include GD165 and HS1531+7436.  If anyone is interested in
participating, let me know!!

There are preliminary plans to hold the 8th WET Workshop in February
2013 in Beijing, hosted by the Beijing Normal University.  It is very
early in the planning process, so please let
us know if you have any suggestions!!

Cheers,
Judi

Snow at McDonald Observatory

Todd Watson and the 82 inch telescope at McDonald Observatory

Target Stars Summary

Here's a quick summary of our target stars:

1)  HS0507+0434B has proven to be very much like EC14012-1446 and GD358.  We 
have identified multiplets associated with several of the modes, plus we have 
seen power grow as we have been observing:)  Take a look at the figure in the
blog. You can see how HS0507 has evolved during the run.
2) HL Tau 76 is always interesting.  Here we are seeing a wide range of 
pulsation frequencies - from 900 to 2500 microHz, some of which are 
multiplets. Some of these "modes" appear to comprise a series that is 
equally spaced in frequency, which is very interesting.  Many of these
frequencies also appear in Dolez 2005.  Of course, we also find 
numerous combination frequencies. Take a look at the web page under 
"Interesting Plots" to see the latest.  
3)G132-12 - this beginning of night target was chosen because of its 
temperature (reported as 12,800 K) and the fact that it only has one mode of 
pulsation (very low amplitude).  The idea is to gather enough cycles 
(period is about 212 s) to create a pulse shape which we can then use for 
convective light curve fitting.  Many of you might remember the figure 
from the EC14012 paper that shows our latest empirical relation.  We 
definitely need more hot stars, as G117-B15A is currently our only example.  
With the addition of WHT, Hawaii, and KPNO data, G132-12 has proven to be 
interesting.  Its pulsation mode is a multiplet with a splitting of 
around 4.1 microHz.  It may be an l=2 mode, but that is unclear. Of 
course, more data is needed:)
4)EC04207 - We have a beautiful FT of this star, thanks to contributions from 
Mt. John, SAAO, Prompt, and SOAR.  This is a large amplitude DB pulsator 
dominated by a single mode that is surprisingly stable. We are working 
towards an eventual pdot measurement.
5) EC05221 - very little is known about this fairly new DBV.  We now know
that it is the DB example of a type of white dwarf pulsator we like to call
the "soft and squishy" stars.  As we add more data to this star's light 
curve, the amplitudes in the FT continue to decrease.  This is a sign
of instability/amplitude modulation.  This star is very similar to R808
and G38-29.

Watch the Night Sky

Webcam at McDonald Observatory

 http://www.as.utexas.edu/mcdonald/webcams/monet-n-sky.jpg

Greetings from Hawaii from Judi Provencal

Thorsten Nagel at Tuebingen in Germany

Simon Jeffery at the William Herschel Telescope. The WHT is a 4 m telescope located in the Canary Islands.

New Member of the WET Team

Congratulations to Susan and Fergal --

Patrick Paul Mullally was born Thanksgiving morning, 24th November
2011 at  1:05 Pacific Time in Kaiser Permanente Hospital of Santa
Clara, California.

Weighing at 4.18 kg (over 9 lbs for you old fashioned types) and
measuring 52 cm from top to tail, it took 38 hours of labour to
convince him that exploring the outside world was not just a
suggestion from his mother.

Mother and baby are doing well, father is an emotional wreck.

SAAO, in South Africa

WET Headquarters

                                      Aiying and James at HQ, talking about reducing data!

XCOV28 Part II

Hello everyone!

We are gearing up for XCOV28 Part II.  The first part of the run has
shown us some exciting data for HS0507+0434B and
HLTau 76.  Both are very interesting targets.  HS0507 is showing signs
of multiplet structure and HL Tau 76's light curves
are looking very nonlinear.  I am looking forward to seeing the FTs of
these stars (and the southern targets) evolve as
the run goes on.

We have a list of preliminary contact times for the different
observatories, which I am enclosing.  These times are simply
approximately one hour before sunset at each observatory.  If you
would prefer a different contact time, or if I have made
a mistake in converting, please let us know.

We will be setting up a "Google Hangout", where anyone who is
observing and/or is just interested, will be able to
chat about the data and the run.  You will need a webcam for this to
work.  We will send more details when everything is
ready to go.  Also, we have a blog at
http://www.wholeearthtelescope.blogspot.com/  If you would like to
send any pictures
of your observatory, we will put them on the blog. Most of the
pictures there now are from the DAMP04 run last May.

Cheers,
Judi

XCOV28

Hello everyone,

Just a quick update on the progress of XCOV28.  I just updated the
website (www.physics.udel.edu/darc) with the latest information that I
have.  If there are any changes, please let me know.

It looks like XCOV28 will start on Nov 1 with the UH 2.2m.  The most
intense coverage will be between Nov 20 - Dec 16.  We still have a few
telescopes with upcoming deadlines, and a few that
will definitely be participating, but we do not have exact dates yet.
Right now, we have 19 telescopes.

We have spent some time considering secondary targets, and I think we
have arrived at a good mix.  The primary target is HS0507+0434B
proposed by Gerard Vauclair.  This is a multiperiodic star with a high
amplitude and a nonlinear light curve.  Its temperature of about 11500
K puts it in a currently unsampled region of space on our convection
plot.  So this is a very interesting target from both an
asteroseismology and convective light curve fitting view.

We have two additional southern targets.  EC04027 is a very large
amplitude DB pulsator that is dominated by a single mode.  Our goals
are to obtain a convective light curve fit of this star, as well as
study its stability for possibly measuring its rate of period change.
BPM31594 is a DA pulsator that looks a lot like PG1351, with a single
mode and subharmonics.  We are planning on folding this star's light
curve to obtain a convective light curve fit.

Finally, we have two additional northern targets.  HL Tau 76 is a well
known multiperiodic DA star with a nonlinear light curve.  G191-16 has
a similar light curve.  We are including these stars to examine
their potential for convective light curve fitting.  If the weather is
great everywhere, we may be able to obtain these goals with this run:)

We are also putting together our Headquarters crew.  If you are
interested in coming to HQ for part of the run, let me know.

Cheers,
Judi