R Aqr Eclipse - Monitoring requested

[Francois Teyssier]

Margarita Karovska communicates the observation schedule with HST and CHANDRA:

Of course UT time:

HST:
3 orbits:
Start time: 13 Jan 2020 03:54:33 End time: 13 Jan 2020 04:48:21
Start time: 13 Jan 2020 08:40:40 End time: 13 Jan 2020 09:34:54
Start time: 14 Jan 2020 02:09:47 End time: 14 Jan 2020 03:58:31

Chandra

12 Jan 2020
2020:012:00:13:21.409
50Ks

So spectroscopic observations a couple of time a week between now and Jan 12, and then good cover of the 13th, 14th and that week, will be great.
"Fluxed" spectra will be of a great help! M. Karaskova





Hopping for clear skies and many spectra

François, David, Woody

[Forrest Sims]

Here is a flux calibrated spectrum taken last night of R Aqr in support of Margarita Karovska's research coordinating HST and Chandra with our visual observations. I have as you can see exaggerated the vertical scale.

Woody

[James Foster]

I was able to shot a 49min (7x420sec) spectrum of R Aqr on the 13Jan20. The Object was quite low and seeing was just average; see:


Shown a little better here:


Is a bifurcation in the H-Alpha emission, best seen in an Isis5.9.3 produced file; see 2d image:

Hope others were able to take spectra of this interesting object!

James

[Francois Teyssier]

Good job, James!
Thank you and thank you to other observers (Forrest Sims, Olivier Garde, Christian Kreider) for the good work on difficul target, very faint and very low.
HST and CHANDRA observations have been performed.

Margarita Karovska communication:
Also i t would be great to complete the season in the next month or so (while R Aqr is observable) and the Mira is at deep minimum.

R Aqr at its faintest luminosity since about JD 2430000 (about the well known 44 days period)

RAqr_HistoricalVisualLC.PNG (41.12 KiB) Viewed 14825 times

All the best,

François

[Frederic Pastor]

Here is my contribution of R Aqr taken last week. I confirm, star rather low on the horizon after the sunset. And less than one hour of exposure before the star disappears behind the mountain ridge (from my site):

R Aqr taken the 14th of Jan

R Aqr FP 14 01 2020.jpg (68.21 KiB) Viewed 14767 times

Despite my low resolution, we may find a little difference on the H-alpha emission showing the slight bifurcation mentionned previously by James:

R Aqr Close up.jpg (62.25 KiB) Viewed 14767 times

A very exciting object

[Francois Teyssier]

James :
The shape of H alpha line strongly depends of the conditions of acquisition, notably the orientation of the slit, position of the target against the slit ...
See the work of Paolo Berardi in
http://www.astrosurf.com/aras/novae/Inf ... 017-07.pdf
(pages 71-75)

Frédéric:
What you observe in the red part of H alpha is the forbidden line [NII] 6584, blended with Ha.
The resolving power is far to be able to resolve H alpha line in R Aqr
BTW: I think that the resolution of your Alpy could be significantly improved. I would suggest: work "on the table" and try tuning the internal focus of the spectroscope on Ne/Ar spectrum.
In ISIS, you can load an image of the Neon (1. Image) and use "Line PSF" to get the FWHM of a line. I suggest the bright neon line at about 5400 angstroms. Tune the internal focus in order to get the lowest FWHM value as possible.

Bonne continuation,

François

[Francois Teyssier]

New season and new pulsation cycle for R Aqr.
The Mira is now at its brightest luminosity at phase 0.0
The maximum is still very low, even lower than during the previous pulsation.

RAqr.PNG (17.39 KiB) Viewed 13431 times

We note the very similar rises of the two last pulsations.

Margarita Karovska request spectra as soon as possible:
Got approved Phase I HST proposal for a follow-up observations, joint with Chandra and VLA observations of R Aqr.
I have been busy submitting Phase II proposals with the tech part, and hoping they will approve them. Not sure about scheduling, but will let you know.
It would be great to continue the spectral monitoring (a weekly spectra would be great).

[Francois Teyssier]

R Aqr is still undergoing absorption (likely eclipsed by "something"?)

In a way it is good, so if it lasts we may get some more HST+Chandra+VLA next year (depending on scheduling).
It is very important to follow it spectroscopically (and photometrically), because those are the only observations that have continuity and can tell us in advance about any physical changes in the system.

It will be interesting if we see any spectral changes in MWC 560 when it emerges in the Autumn.
That one has been really strange lately - the V and B band seem to be "stuck" there - pretty bright for this system...

Margarita Karovska

[JP Nougayrede]

R Aqr as seen 2019 - 08 - 31, for what it is worth

R aqr.png (58.04 KiB) Viewed 11523 times

[Francois Teyssier]

An informative publication about R Aqr eclispe that we observed in visible:

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3 ... ac8a47/pdf

A model from IR observations:

RAqr.PNG (116.65 KiB) Viewed 7868 times

Ungoing observations are welcome!
https://aras-database.github.io/database/raqr.html