On 1997-02-06 rudolfn@physics.muni.cz said: >I have one question about strange behavior of EG Cnc. Can someone >help me? I would like to ask you, if some star before EG Cnc showed >this unusual light curve or if EG is first one. And of course can >we explain it? Right now I don't have any idea how to. >I am preparing a few sentences to our magazine Diskobolos and would >know some opinions. I am looking forward to receive some answers >thank you very much and have a nice dreams G'day Rudolf, Hypothesis to explain EG Cnc: it's being attacked by aliens ;) I would have liked to observe this one for myself, but looking through the top of Adelaide's skyglow at 13th mag stars is a bit difficult for me. However, there seems to be a similar star in the other direction where my sky is dark - WX Hydri. The VSS RASNZ Circulars for October & November arrived this week. Here's some more information about that odd superoutburst of WX Hyi: JD of maximum 2450000+ duration (rise-peak-fall) days magnitude ----------- ------------------------------ --------- 363 2.9 - 5.0 - 5.7 (supermax) 12.0 380 1.1 - - 0.9 12.5 386 1.4 - 0.7 - 1.0 12.5 394 1.2 - 0.2 - 2.3 12.4 406 2.0 - - 1. 12.8 416 (Nov 28) 1.8 - 1. - 1.1 12.0 And some dates from my own notes for 1996 December: outburst - 10th(?) no outburst - 12th, 30th, 31st How many of those maxima represent re-brightenings of a superoutburst? Maybe all of them? WX Hyi certainly didn't "slow down" after the superoutburst like many other UGSS's would have! In fact it may be even more active than indicated; there has been a lot of cloudy weather in the Southern Hemisphere lately. WX Hyi's frequency of outburst was about 2 or 3 times per month a few years ago, and outbursts were typically less than 2 days long. Even its superoutbursts lasted no more than a week. Now it is going off more frequently, and for longer maxima. Taichi Kato seems to be right in suggesting WX Hyi is trying to join "The ER UMa Club". I presume you are writing about these hyperactive ER UMa dwarf novae, so why not post your Diskobolos article to vsnet-chat? I would like to read it please.... cheers, Fraser Farrell Variable Stars Group Astronomical Society of South Australia WWW: http://vsnet.gist.net.au/assa/ email: fraserf@dove.net.au traditional: GPO Box 199, Adelaide, SA 5001, Australia Net-Tamer V 1.08 - Registered