The RIT Observatory looks at WZ Sge

The Observatory at the Rochester Institute of Technology is directed by James Kern of the Physics Department. Our staff this summer include Michael Richmond , Tracy Davis, Stacey Davis, Kevin Beaulieu and Dustin Crabtree, and Matt Aggleton.

We have observed WZ Sge a number of times since its outburst in late July, 2001. Our equipment:

• Meade 10-inch f/10 LX200 telescope
• SBIG ST-8E CCD
• standard Johnson-Cousins filters, supplied by SBIG
• processing and synthetic aperture photometry using XVista

We have acquired data on

• Jul 25 UT (Tuesday night, Jul 24/25). V-band, 10 sec exposures. Synthetic aperture radius 6 pixels = 13 arcsec.
  • WZ Sge V-band data
• Jul 27 UT (Thursday night, Jul 26/27). V-band, 10 sec exposures. Synthetic aperture radius 4 pixels = 8.8 arcsec.
  • WZ Sge V-band data
• Jul 31 UT (Monday night, Jul 30/31). V-band, 10 sec exposures. Synthetic aperture radius 4 pixels = 8.8 arcsec.
  • WZ Sge V-band data
• Aug 01 UT (Tuesday night, Jul 31/Aug 1). V-band, 10 sec exposures. Synthetic aperture radius 4 pixels = 8.8 arcsec.
  • WZ Sge V-band data
• Aug 5 UT (Saturday night, Aug 4/5). B-band, 20 sec exposures. Synthetic aperture radius 4 pixels = 8.8 arcsec.
  • WZ Sge B-band data
• Aug 6 UT (Sunday night, Aug 5/6). B-band, 20 sec exposures. Synthetic aperture radius 4 pixels = 8.8 arcsec.
  • WZ Sge B-band data
• Aug 8 UT (Tuesday night, Aug 7/8). I-band, 10 sec exposures. Synthetic aperture radius 4 pixels = 8.8 arcsec.
  • WZ Sge I-band data
• Aug 11 UT (Friday night, Aug 10/11). I-band, 10 sec exposures. Synthetic aperture radius 4 pixels = 8.8 arcsec.
  • WZ Sge I-band data
• Aug 12 UT (Saturday night, Aug 11/12). V-band, 10 sec exposures. Synthetic aperture radius 4 pixels = 8.8 arcsec. Cut short by clouds, so only 2.5 hours of measurements.
  • WZ Sge V-band data
• Aug 15 UT (Tuesday night, Aug 14/15). V-band, 10 sec exposures. Synthetic aperture radius 4 pixels = 8.8 arcsec.
  • WZ Sge V-band data
• Aug 16 UT (Wednesday night, Aug 15/16). V-band, 10 sec exposures. Synthetic aperture radius 4 pixels = 8.8 arcsec.
  • WZ Sge V-band data
• Aug 22 UT (Tuesday night, Aug 21/22). V-band, 15 sec exposures. Synthetic aperture radius 3 pixels = 6.6 arcsec. Bad weather in the middle of the night, so a 2.5-hour gap in the measurements.
  • WZ Sge V-band data
• Aug 25 UT (Friday night, Aug 24/25). V-band, 15 sec exposures. Synthetic aperture radius 3 pixels = 6.6 arcsec.
  • WZ Sge V-band data
• Aug 28 UT (Monday night, Aug 27/28). V-band, 15 sec exposures. Synthetic aperture radius 3 pixels = 6.6 arcsec.
  • WZ Sge V-band data
• Aug 29 UT (Tuesday night, Aug 28/29). V-band, 10 sec exposures. Synthetic aperture radius 3 pixels = 6.6 arcsec.
  • WZ Sge V-band data
• Aug 30 UT (Wednesday night, Aug 29/30). V-band, 15 sec exposures. Synthetic aperture radius 3 pixels = 6.6 arcsec. Sharp drop in temperature caused poor focus early in the night, MJD 151.60 - 151.645.
  • WZ Sge V-band data
• Sep 02 UT (Saturday night, Sep 01/02). V-band, 15 sec exposures. Synthetic aperture radius 3 pixels = 6.6 arcsec.
  • WZ Sge V-band data
• Sep 03 UT (Sunday night, Sep 02/03). Unfiltered, 6 sec exposures, only 1/4 of the chip (tried for rapid sampling, got one picture every 15 seconds). Synthetic aperture radius 3 pixels = 6.6 arcsec.
  • WZ Sge V-band data
• Sep 04 UT (Monday night, Sep 03/04). V-band, 10 sec exposures (back to usual arrangement). Synthetic aperture radius 3 pixels = 6.6 arcsec. Clouds gradually thickened, halted observations after 2.4 hours.
  • WZ Sge V-band data

Other good sites for information on WZ Sge are

• Landolt's calibration of stars in the field of WZ Sge
  Sep 17, 2001: This information has now been published in IBVS volume 5166. To see the paper, go to http://www.konkoly.hu/IBVS/issues.html and type in "5166", followed by "Get it!"

• Bjorn Granslo has created an extended sequence of stars within a few arcminutes of WZ Sge, with magnitudes running from V=8.7 to V=15.4.
  • Granslo's table of photometry

• The VSNET page on WZ Sge , containing data collected from all over the world. Truly the King of all WZ Sge pages :-)
• Gianluca Masi's page describing data taken at the Bellatrix Observatory in Italy
• Brian Martin's page at King's University College in Edmonton, Canada
• Tonny Vanmuster's page at the CBA Belgium Observatory
• Lew Cook's page from CBA Concord, New Zealand.
• Danny Steeghs' page includes a schedule of planned future observations by big telescopes.

Last modified 9/20/2001 by MWR