[vsnet-chat 7580] XMMUJ115113.3-623730 (Cen slow nova) - Stockdale lightcurve

[substellar at Safe-mail.net]

Chris Stockdale's timeseries look as though they are nicely filling in the phasespace of the outbursting object in Centaurus.

Although it's still too early to tell from the data, as aliasing is still strong, there is some possibility of a period just over a large fraction of a day being possible, either a little over a quarter day or little over a third of a day.  More data may or may not support this, but currently his coverage of this object is showing a lightcurve with very strong similarities to the slow nova supersoft xray source V723 Cassiopeiae, both in general form and to some extent in amplitude, compare for example the bottom right hand plot for the figure in this paper :- http://www.konkoly.hu/cgi-bin/IBVS?4852 (and note flickering and the like affect the lightcurve such that it is not perfectly repeatable in a folded plot).

Certainly, at least circumstantially, there is the hint of regularity in the lightcurve, for despite gaps in the coverage a 0.6 V amplitude ranging somewhat faithfully between V 13.6 and 14.2 suggests more of an underlying pattern rather than just random flucuation.

Coverage is still relatively few nights overall so indications are not certainties, and the potential periodicity value leads to a liability for same phase coverage on closely spaced nights from the same location, but Chris' data may well be teasing out the first hints of orbital signature, akin to the V723 Cas situation.

Lovely stuff, Chris!

Cheers

John