On the night of Aug 07/08, 2010, I observed the cataclysmic variable star V592 Her in outburst. My measurements show that it had an average magnitude of about V=15.1, with prominent variation of about 0.2 mag peak-to-peak.
The setup was:
Notes from the night
This is a chart of the field based on an image from last night, Aug 08 UT. The field of view is about 9 arcminutes on a side.
I measured the instrumental magnitude of each star with aperture photometry, using a radius of 4 pixels = 4.2 arcseconds and sky defined by an annulus around each star. Following the procedures outlined by Kent Honeycutt's article on inhomogeneous ensemble photometry, I used all stars available in each image to define a reference frame, and measured each star against this frame.
One output of the ensemble solution is the value of the zero-point of each frame relative to the others. In the graph below, I plot this zero-point as a function of time. Note the elevated periods due to clouds; the light curve has increased noise during these periods.
Below is a graph of the scatter in differential magnitude versus magnitude in the ensemble solution.
The floor of this diagram corresponds to a scatter of about 0.005 mag, which is pretty good. as I've seen from the SBIG ST-9 camera.
The star with very elevated scatter near differential magnitude 12.9 is the target, V592 Her. No other stars in the field show significant variation.
Light curves for selected stars (V592 Her and stars A - F) in the field are shown below. The target is shown by light green crosses.
Below is a closeup of the light curve of V592 Her and a couple of comparison stars (which I have shifted vertically for convenience).
I've made a table of the measurements themselves, with three different flavors of time. The differential magnitudes from the ensemble solution have been shifted so that star "A" in my chart, USNOB1.0 1112-0258663, has value 12.784, which is its V-band magnitude according to Henden's calibration.
Here's the start of the table.
# Measurements of V592Her made at RIT Obs, Aug 8, 2010 UT,
in so-so conditions,
# by Michael Richmond, using 14-inch Celestron and SBIG ST-9E CCD.
# Exposures 60 seconds long, no filter.
# Tabulated times are midexposure (FITS header time - half exposure length)
# and accurate only to +/- 1 second (??).
# 'mag' is a differential magnitude based on ensemble photometry
# using a circular aperture of radius 4.2 arcseconds.
# which has been shifted so USNOB1.0 1112-0258663 has mag=12.784
# which is its V-band magnitude according to Henden via AAVSO.
#
# UT_day JD HJD mag uncert
Aug08.07671 2455416.57671 2455416.57790 15.057 0.013
Aug08.07744 2455416.57744 2455416.57863 15.079 0.012
Aug08.07816 2455416.57816 2455416.57935 15.063 0.013
Last modified 8/8/2010 by MWR.