[vsnet-alert 10752] V723 Cas orbital phased lightcurve in V

[bydra at Safe-mail.net]

See figure 2 here :-

<http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=2003BaltA..12..610C&db_key=AST&page_ind=3&data_type=GIF&type=SCREEN_VIEW&classic=YES>

amplitude nearly one and a half mags by the looks, throughout the fifteenth to sixteenth V mag range.

This was just from a quick and dirty literature search, there's no doubt newer and betterer lightcurves around somewhere.  The body text write up commences here

<http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/2003BaltA..12..610C/0000611.000.html>

People would have to stare hard at the papers announcing the stated third body and its orbit, there's always someone finding third bodies in orbitally modulated lightcurves that aren't always there.  Given an ephemeris I suppose CCD peeps could monitor throughout and/or around near this periastron passage time to see if any little wibbles or spikes appear.  Throughout is a more unbiased observing regime.

The thing's apparently been recently noted as a supersoft xray source, which I suppose could mean the odd 'flash' every now and again should the mass transfer from the secondary up itself a bit from time to time (although if there's an 182 day interperiastron period you'd think they'd be noted more regular for this near circumpolar object).  Theory folk even like the idea of these things slowly being fed enough over time to become Type Ia SNe.  But observing folk have to remember that theories're full of stuff like this that visual lightcurves very rarely, sometimes never, care about (and by inference, neither do the star systems involved), whilst theories're damn good at falling over when some new survey and/or targetting satellite goes out and measures what's really happening to stuff.

A quicky google search of atels doesn't seem to show SSS particularly being noted optically outbursting in recent times, albeit there's an xray/gamma ray bias on that list.  Most the recent ones look to be freshly old novae ("recent old new" stars).

John