Jun 27, 2014 UT: ASAS-SN14cv and ASAS-SN14cl

Michael Richmond
Jun 27, 2014

On the night of Jun 26/27, 2014, I observed the cataclysmic variable stars ASAS-SN14cv and ASAS-SN14cl. You can read more about these stars, which were both discovered only recently, at

Both stars showed nice variations tonight. However, both are dimmer than they were 4 nights ago. ASAS14cv is around V = 12.0, and ASAS14cl is around V = 12.8.

The main setup was:

Notes from the night

Below is a graph showing the sky brightness as a function of time during the observing run.

Below is a graph showing the FWHM as a function of time during the observing run.


ASAS-14cv

Here's a chart of the field of ASAS-SN14cv, which is at


      RA = 17:43:48.58     Dec = +52:03:46.8   (J2000)

Some of the reference stars marked above have magnitudes in the UCAC4. Specifically, star "A" above is

The television camera on the finder scope shows the following when we're pointed at ASAS-14cv. North up, East left, field about 1 degree on a side.

Image adjustment factors show no big features - good.

Using aperture photometry with a radius of 4 pixels (radius of 7.4 arcsec), I measured the instrumental magnitudes of a number of reference stars and the target. 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. I used the AAVSO V-band magnitude of star "B" to convert the ensemble instrumental magnitudes to a reported "V"-band magnitude (but remember, it's a clear filter).

Sigma-vs-mag plot:

The target had a "V"-band magnitude of roughly 12.0, a decrease of about 0.8 mag since 4 nights ago.

You can see my measurements of the star in the ASCII text file below. The first few lines are shown here:

# Measurements of ASAS_SN14cv made at RIT Obs, Jun 27, 2014 UT, 
#    in good conditions, 
#    by Michael Richmond, using 12-inch Meade and SBIG ST-8E CCD. 
# Exposures 30 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 7.4 arcseconds.  
#    which has been shifted so UCAC4 711-058151 has mag=11.518 
#    which is its V-band mag according to UCAC4.  
# 
# UT_day             JD            HJD        mag    uncert
Jun27.08148     2456835.58148  2456835.58291  12.067  0.004 
Jun27.08204     2456835.58204  2456835.58347  12.070  0.004 
Jun27.08259     2456835.58259  2456835.58402  12.077  0.004 


ASAS-14cl

Here's a chart of the field of ASAS-SN14cl, which is at


      RA = 21:54:57.62     Dec = +26:41:16   (J2000)

Some of the reference stars marked above have magnitudes the UCAC4 AAVSO chart 13493SS. Specifically, star "B" above is

The television camera on the finder scope shows the following when we're pointed at ASAS-14cl. North up, East left, field about 1 degree on a side.

Conditions were good throughout the observations of ASAS 14cl. A few images suffered from poor guiding.

Using aperture photometry with a radius of 4 pixels (radius of 7.4 arcsec), I measured the instrumental magnitudes of a number of reference stars and the target. 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. I used the AAVSO V-band magnitude of star "B" to convert the ensemble instrumental magnitudes to a reported "V"-band magnitude (but remember, it's a clear filter).

The target is the bright star with larger scatter than its peers.

The target had a "V"-band magnitude of roughly 12.8, about 0.5 mag dimmer than 4 nights ago.

Grab the text file below for all the RIT measurements of ASAS-SN14cl. The header of the file is shown below.

# Measurements of ASAS_SN14cl made at RIT Obs, Jun 27, 2014 UT, 
#    in good conditions, 
#    by Michael Richmond, using 12-inch Meade and SBIG ST-8E CCD. 
# Exposures 30 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 7.4 arcseconds.  
#    which has been shifted so UCAC4 584-123918 has mag=12.335 
#    which is its V-band mag according to AAVSO chart 13493SS.  
# 
# UT_day             JD            HJD        mag    uncert
Jun27.18666     2456835.68666  2456835.68851  12.831  0.006 
Jun27.18721     2456835.68721  2456835.68906  12.844  0.006 
Jun27.18775     2456835.68775  2456835.68960  12.838  0.006 


Last modified 6/27/2014 by MWR.