Forums / The Science / Visual Observing / checking on my estimate
checking on my estimate
New at this,
I have searched the Internet and I can’t find a method to use the historical light curve data for beta Lyrae (SAO 67451, AAVSO 1846+33) that would allow me to figure out if my visual estimate of the star on a given night (tonight, for example) is close to the historical magnitude. In other words, how can I predict the average magnitude for a given Julian date based upon the historical data?
Jack
Hi Jack, This website will give you the current phase and timings of eclipsing binaries which you can use with historical data to calculate the expected brightness at a given time. http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/ephem/ bet Lyr is here http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/minicalc/LYRBETA.HTM Robin
Thanks to both of you, It’s all still pretty esoteric but, I think that myvisual estimate (3.5) was close the prediction from historical data, which I putat around 3.8, wasn’t too bad … maybe just luckJack
Hello Jack, I have obtained a light curve of Beta Lyrae with a digital camera (Canon Powershot G3) from May to December 2010: http://flic.kr/p/9CgRfr You should be able to compare your estimates with the measures using the phase on the light curve and the elements I used from the GCVS: Min I = JD 2408247.95 + 12.913834 n. The magnitudes are from the green images using V magnitude for the comparison stars (nearly V, but not yet transformed). Best regards, Wolfgang