V0645 AUR: Early Onset of the Eclipse? And Recommendations about Best Observing Cadence?

Hi Mike,  All the following assumes your last night's photometry is good.  Does the actual portion of hte light curve from last night fit the lightcurve from another eclipse night.  Magnitudes, rate of change?

I just went to the ASASSN data download page:

https://asas-sn.osu.edu/variables/lookup?utf8=✓

It plots a very scattered-looking graph phased light-curve graph, but their software used a period of 542+ days.  That often happens on smaller amplitude EBs.  Their automatically-determined (?) period can be quite wrong.  So I downloaded the data to a spreadsheet and made a phased plot using the VSX elements (epoch, period). Result:  also a scattered graph.  This suggests the elements (the period, actually) are/is wrong.  So one approach for you would be to do period analysis on the ASASSN data to come up with a new period and epoch.  An advantage of this would be it would based on recent data, so even if the period is of low precision, you'll be able to predict eclipses well enough to plan observations.

Another approach:  I went to the BRNO site, and it gives an O-C diagram that includes some recent observations by others that fit the VSX elements pretty well:  

http://var2.astro.cz/ocgate/ocgate.php?submit=Submit&lang=en&star=V0645…

So that implies the elements are pretty good!

This leaves us with a quandary!  When I guesstimate a ToM from your report, of 245 8744.75, and enter it to that website as "user data", it indeed gives an O-C of -2.087 d, which agrees with what you said.

(Enter it as:   2458744.75 ccd p   )

BTW, you can use the same process with your Dec 2019 ToM, to see where it lands on the O-C. 

So, what I would do is work with this data as much as you can and also download the available from NSVS, ASAS-3, Hipparchos that Otero et al used in the 2006 IBVS 5681 paper to derive the elements in VSX.  Re do the period analysis yourself, try to reconcile it with the ASASSN data, is likley about 20 years later.  

A purely observational approach would be to observe every night you can, at the beginning and end of each night, to try to find another eclipse or two.  Then start "homing in"

I would also especially plan future observations that straddle last nights pseudo ToM, plus multiples of the VSX period, and at the offset of the secondary eclipse ( 0.789 x period ), and its complement ( [1-0.789] x period  ( I've seen that error in published data sometimes ).

Something funny is going on:  when you unravel it, you'll have added more knowledge, more than if the star had come in just when expected!

I hope this helps,     Gary Billings

P.S.  yes, wise to keep in mind variabilty of the components, but note the depth of the eclipse is supposed to be 0.5 mags, which is large compared some of the types of variability usually encountered in such cases.

But "Early compared to what?" is a question.

The VSX min ephemeris dates from 2003. Happily, a more recent observation from Feb 6 2020 (yours, I think) already confirms a more recent minimum that is also early compared to VSX's 2003 recorded minimum JD. The phase has shifted earlier by a day or two, or possibly later by 3-4 days if 50% out of phase (1'min vs 2'min).

So you'll want to recapture the phase, with observation JDs guided by the more recent min observation. You'll want to observe both minima to distinguish 1'min from 2'min, starting with good coverage around the JDs projected from the period (which probably isn't completely wrong) and from that most recent (Feb 6 2020) good min observation.

Updating the ephemeris is important work, and when you've succeeded you'll want to notify VSX. If you follow up again this year and once or twice next year, you might also be able to update the VSX period  as well (which clearly isn't exactly right for the most recent 18 years).

Thank you! I get good SNR between 45 seconds for V, 90 seconds for B, and 3 min for I - an unusual cadence since I-filter typically has the shortest exposures of the three filters for my system for other variables.

    V0645 AUR is nearing the end of this observing season - it goes below 30 degrees west at about 11:00 PM. With my system. Perhaps I should concentrate on V0645 AUR with this every 5 minute cadence for the first 2 hours of observing time for the next month in order to get better granularity for the data?

    That would give me the chance to catch 3 eclipses, even though with such a short window, there is a good chance of missing them.

    However, that would also help identify variability of the components (if any) other than eclipsing variability.

    Would this be too much data for LCG given its possible period(s) and may exceed the standard 50:1 observing cadence? Best regards.

Mike

If you start by trying to recapture phase of this eclipser, you don't need rapid cadence at all. V0645 Aur's period is given as about 10.9 days, meaning that its 1' minimum probably lasts 3-5 hours. So for phase capture, if you image it once per hour--or per half hour if you'd be more confident--you definitely won't miss the minimum between your images. Since V0645 Aur's phase has become so uncertain, you'll need to capture both minima (or show that 2'min is absent) to be sure you're not off by 1/2 phase, i.e., mistaking 1'min for 2'min and vice versa.

Once you nail down the phase, then you can refine the minimum lightcurve with as fast a cadence as you please; if the minimum lasts 5 hours, then yes 8-12 images per hour would be reasonable. (Until September-October you'll probably have to splice together parts of the minimum lightcurve from different nights.)

Thank you!

Mike

Hello all,
prompted by these messages I went and checked the system's ephemeris, using the newly available ASAS-SN data in combination with ASAS-3 and NSVS observations.
Everything fits well. You observed the secondary eclipse which falls at phase 0.79 and not the primary eclipse predicted by the ephemeris.
I improved the period a little bit but it's not significant. I did find that there is apsidal motion in the system so I added an ephemeris for the secondary eclipse in the star remarks. New phase plot is also available through the VSX star page.

Cheers,
Sebastian (and his kidney stone :()
 

Thank you!

Mike

I did a long stare last evening and V0645 Aur was not eclipsing as expected. However a couple others were very active:

TYC 1890-1262-1 and TYC 1890-384-1 were in my FOV of V0645 Aur.

BTW, both my focus and airmass got away from me on the last quarter of this run, so the last 8 or 10 data  points are not the best. I will try to get more on TYC 1890-384-1 during the next month to attempt a phase plot. Also, get a bunch more information about V0645 Aur.

RayTRE

Hello! I caught the eclipse last night as the ephemeris predicted. Best regards.

Mike