AAS: Day 2

Greetings from day 2 of the AAS meeting in Seattle, WA. 

Today was the big day in terms of eps Aur activity.  There was a dedicated poster session as well as a special session with talks dedicated to the system.

You can view information about the talks here on the AAS website and the poster abstracts here.  We also recorded the talks and will post them to CSky once we increase the audio and get a copy of the presentations so you can follow along.

A few highlights from the talks / posters:

• Jeffrey Hopkins presented a poster on photometry collected by members of the International Epsilon Aurigae Campaign.  The photometry collected through this eclipse is staggering.  Easily several thousand points spread across the V, B, R, I, J and H-bands.  These data show the quasi-periodic variations in the shorter wavelengths (most noticeable in U,B, and V) that have hampered the analysis of the system.
• Dr. Griffin of the Herzberg Inst. of Astrophysics (in Canada) presented a talk discussing the spectral features found in prior eclipses.  She has been digitizing spectra taken on photographic plates from prior eclipses (going back to 1903).  Some of these plates have a staggering R~70,000 (yes, seventy thousand) for spectral resolution.  For comparison, modern spectra typically are limited to R~35,000 at best (there are a few instruments that go higher, but not much so).  This is a really wonderful data source.
• Bill Ketezback reported on spectra from the current eclipse.  He has amassed an amazing number of spectra from a few hundred Angstroms (I don't recall the starting point) out to 2.5 micrometers at a resolution of R~35,000.
• John Clover (of UCSD with the SMEI spacecraft) reported on photometric observations using this device that occur once during every 102 minute orbit.  The light curve shows the presence of a long-lasting, big bump that starts in March and ends in September/October of 2010.  Given that the spacecraft isn't subject to atmospheric extinction effects, this places strong constraints on the mid-eclipse brightening.  Also, it changes the concept of what we think mid-eclipse brightening may be.  It isn't a large brightness spike due to a hole in the disk.
• Dr. Bob presented a poster on infrared work on eps Aur.  This includes our ongoing effort to observe with SPEX as well as work by several other astronomers.  I'll leave the details to Dr. Bob in a future blog post for him.
• On behalf of a large group of amateur astronomers Robin Leadbeater presented a poster discussing a series of spectra covering hydrogen alpha (and the surrounding region) and the neutral potassium line (KI 7669A).  The people I spoke to about this poster were really interested in the behavior of the hydrogen alpha "horns" and their appearance and disappearance.  You can get a copy of Robin's poster here.
• Sally Seebode presented an update on their spectroscopic monitoring of the eclipse at San Mateo High School.  I think this poster really demonstrates the fact that you don't need to have (or be working on) a Ph.D. to do good work.  Her class has been reducing and extracting equivalent widths from spectra and is producing quite good results.
• Dr. Howell (of the Hoard, Howell, and Stencel paper announced at the Washington, DC AAS meeting) presented updated information on Hubble observations (in ultraviolet light) of eps Aur.
• Lastly I presented a poster discussing the interferometric observations of epsilon Aurigae... but more on that in a future blog post.

Well, that's it for tonight.  Clear skies,
Brian