Affiliation
Variable Stars South (VSS)
Tue, 02/12/2013 - 12:16
As this star has been reportde to be in outburst I decided to attempt to take a spectra of it using my LISA spectroscope and a C11 telescope.
Unfortunately the weather intervened but I did achieve about 30 mins of exposure.
The spectra is noisy but I can confirm that there are no H emission lines that you would expect with a classical nova. Therr eis a very weak H beta absorption line but this is the only feature I can see. Maybe the weather will get better over the next few days and I can try again..
Terry
File Upload
_grori_20130212_453.png7.95 KB
Hi Terry,
Yes, this doesn't look like a nova -- I think a dwarf nova in outburst is probably a better match. Assuming the amplitude is over 8 magnitudes, I wouldn't be surprised if this is a WZ Sge star.
Just looking at the limited data available in LCG, it has shown several outbursts to mag 12-14 over the last several years. No known nova or recurrent nova has such frequent outbursts. So, the timing of outbursts and their magnitude seems almost certain its a WZ-Sge type.
Mike LMK
Hi Mike
I've watched this star for years and there have been no recent outbursts to my knowledge. More likely some 'fainter than' obs were miss-entered. Maybe by me in 2006. Sara B is tideying up this data set now.
Alan.
I can confirm what Alan said. After consulting with him and a few other observers, I was able to correct the rest of the positive observations from the past which were in fact supposed to be fainter-than observations. So there have not been any previous outbursts of this star recorded in the AAVSO International Database.
Many thanks to all the dedicated observers who have kept an eye on this star all these years, waiting for somthing to happen!
Sara Beck
AAVSO Technical Assistant
Science Team
[quote=BSJ]I can confirm what Alan said. After consulting with him and a few other observers, I was able to correct the rest of the positive observations from the past which were in fact supposed to be fainter-than observations. So there have not been any previous outbursts of this star recorded in the AAVSO International Database.[/quote]
I think this problem with GR Ori is just the "tip of the iceberg". I was misled into a conclusion by the false positive observations which should not have been in there. The AID DB no doubt has a lot of such errors within, and will continue to cause problems for researchers on a regular basis.
I think Sara needs to receive the maximum support in her effort to process all the Zapper reports in a timely fashion. It appears this is much more than a "one woman" job, and we either need to assign other staff or request and allow volunteers to have access and cleanup the DB.
Thanks, Mike LMK
Mike,
As was mentioned in another thread recently, the best way people can volunteer to assist with maintenance of the AID is to use our Zapper tool to bring observations to our attention. We can then follow up on these reports to the best of our ability and, when warranted by evidence, correct them.
I agree that multiple pairs of eyes looking for issues in the database is a good idea, and that's why Zapper exists -- you have the ability to help with this already, right now. I do not agree that we need additional people editing the live database. We do edits in a very controlled and well documented way, and that is most easily done with the headquarters staff that we have.
Matthew
I observed GR Ori tonight and its indeed in outburst. Will probably do a time series on it tomorrow night. Its B and V magnitude are very similar (average= 13.55). Here is a little chart showing these magnitudes at the observed JDs.
James
Los Angeles, Ca
http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=4811
Yours is earlier though Terry.
Cheers
Robin
Yes Robin. Mine was earlier. I didn't think it worthwhile submitting my spectra to TAT or CBAT as it seemed too noisy. Maybe I should have.
It's likely to be cloudy for a few days here so not much chance of a follow up.
Terry