Early observations of the superoutburst

I have just added to the light curve the observations made by Marcin Wardak (Poland). These data contain only 9 points (laptop crash did not allowed to make more) but are made on Jan. 25 at 18:30 UT and are now our earliest observations of the current superoutburst.

More superhumps

I have just received the nice light curves of RZ LMi from Bob Koff and Jerry Foote. Its show clear superhumps with amplitude of 0.1 mag. The superoutburst continues. Keep observing and look below at beautiful effects of these observations :)

Superoutburst confirmed

I have reveived preliminary report from Kosmas Gazeas (Athens, Greece). Kosmas wrote:

The weather remained stable all night long and I managed to get a continuous series of about 300 images between 18:20 UT until 04:20 UT this morning. We will soon have a complete 10-hour lightcurve in our hands! The target was bright enough to be captured with a 0.4 m telescope. No obvious trent of light variation was noticed, but some small humps were visible. RZ LMi is still in the outburst mode!

RZ LMi in superourburst!

Jacek Pala (Slupsk, Poland) reports RZ LMi at magnitude 13.6 this morning (Jan 26, 3 GMT). It is our superoutburst, most probably!

Things you can do when is cloudy

Lack of good weather encouraged me to do some preliminary analysis. Our last outburst appeared to be quite long and bright. I compared it withvmean profile of outburst derived from 2004-2005 observations. See the picture below. The red and green points show January 2009 and mean 2004-2005 profiles of the outburst, respectively.



It is clear that our newest explosion was about 0.5 mag brighter and lasted about 1 day longer than a typical outburst from previous seasons.

Another pecularity is current supercycle length. We are waiting for the superoutburts for at least 23 days. This value is significantly higher than 19-day supercyle of RZ LMi.

Sad news

All our locations report bad weather conditions so I have no news to share with you. Fortunately, RZ LMi went to the quiescence and should stay there for a day or two.

Not a precursor

The newest data sent by Bob Koff show that RZ LMi faded to 15.5 mag and is about 1 mag fainter than during previous night. Ongoing explosion thus looks like an ordinary outburst and not a precursor seen at the beginning of the superoutburst.

Superhumps!

I have just received new data from Jerry Foote (CBA Utah) who uses 60-cm telescope and receives very good quality light curves. The humps seen previously in data of Bob Koff are now even more clear having amplitude around 0.05 mag. Below you cen see the detrended Jerry's light curve of RZ LMi from last night.


Additionaly, I computed the power spectrum of this light curve and obtained clear peak at frequency 16.55 c/d which corresponds to the value of period equal to 0.0604(8) days. It roughly agrees with the period of superhumps which is 0.059396(4) days.

It looks, we have an outburst with superhumps. Another possibility is that this outburst is so-called precursor which ignites the superoutburst. Waiting for more data to clarify this situation.

It is not a superoutburst.

It is not a superoutburst. Newest data sent by Bob Koff show that RZ LMi faded comparing to last night and is still fading being now at around 14.7 mag. But....

See the light curve sent by Bob. It is extremely interesting that during ordinary outburst we see something like mini-superhumps! Continue watching this star!

Waiting for the superhumps...

According to the AAVSO light curve of RZ LMi the last two confirmed superoutbursts started around JD 2454788 and 2454833. Using 19-day value of supercycle, the first superoutburst suggests occurence of the current superoutburst at JD 2454845. The ephemeris based on the second and most recent superoutburst gives the date around JD 2454852. This value agrees very well with ongoing explosion and may suggest that we are observing a superoutburst. Where are the superhumps???

Ongoing explosion

Latest reports form Jacek Pala (Słupsk, Poland) and Pawel Kankiewicz (Kielce, Poland) found RZ LMi with increasing brightness at around 15.4 mag. The newest data from Bob Koff (Antelope Hills Observatory, USA) clarify the situation - RZ LMi is undergoing the explosion reaching now 14.2 mag. But we still do not see any superhumps. Another ordinary outburst?

Do we have superoutburst?

According to our observations, RZ LMi has stayed in quiescence since JD 844 i.e. during last 7 days (we saw only one normal outburst during this time). Taking into accound 19-day supercycle of this star a superoutburst may appear very soon. The data sent by Bob Koff and Jerry Foote show slight increasing trend in the brightness of the star during last night. Further data gathered by Pawel Kankiewicz indicate that the star is about 1 mag brighter than in quiescence. Do we have superoutburst? Keep watching, keep watching, keep watching :)

Greetings,
Arek