 Millie, Michelle, Kathy, and Christina (post-presentation) THE PLAYERS |
Three beautiful, brilliant, and boisterous young women elected to participate in the Variable Stars Project:
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This video was created by Lick observer extraordinaire
Ellie Gates. It shows four different types of variable
stars. Starting in the upper right-hand corner, they are: nova, Cepheid, RR Lyrae, and eclipsing
binary. The students were shown this video without being told what the objects were. They were asked
to find the variable stars and to speculate as to what might be causing the variation. Then they
drew rough sketches of the variation of each object over time (called a "lightcurve"). They noticed
that some seemed more regular (or periodic) than others (e.g. RR Lyrae versus nova). The students suggested that variation in stars may be due to planets, nebulae, changes in distance, and/or changes in size. |
Observing SZ HerThe SZ Her star chart is shown at the left. SZ Her is the bright star in the middle. The field is 5x5 arcminutes, which is about the field of view of the Nickel.What type of name is SZ Her? Her is an abbreviation of the Latin name for the constellation The Strongman, Hercules. Astronomers often name stars after the constellation in which they're found. Stars that vary their brightness are called variable stars, and the first one to be found in a constellation was name A, the next B, and so on. When they reached the end of the alphabet with Z, they started over with AA, then AB, and so on. So the name SZ Her means that it was about the 500th variable star to be discovered in the constellation of Hercules. The observation process for this project is described below, but More information can be found in the handy manual Observing a Variable Star-The Observations written and modified by previous Variable Stars project advisors Patrik Jonsson and Observing a Variable Star-A Recipe for Photometry. |
 Digitized Sky Survey |
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On July 8th, the students observed SZ Her with the Nickel 40" Reflector of
Lick Observatory, Mt. Hamilton, CA.
They observed remotely
from the CfAO conference room with the help of Ellie. Observing is a hectic affair, but Millie, Michelle, and Christina made it through relatively unscathed. And with good data; as shown by the lightcurve on the left, the students managed to observe the minimum in the the "visual" (V) or green-colored band at 11:13:24 PST (6:13:24 UT). Data reduction and photometry were performed with IRAF (Image Reduction and Analysis Facility), which is standard astronomer fair. The Nickel software already accounts for the noise due to the electronics of the telescope and CCD (i.e. camera). The images were divided by the appropriate flat field image, which removes the dust artifacts of the filters and effectively normalizes the sensitivity of the CCD. Next, the images were registered, or aligned, so that the objects of interest (namely, SZ Her and the comparison stars) would be located at the same pixel location in each image. Aperture photometry was performed with the IRAF package qphot ("quick photometry"). The magnitdues given are differential magnitudes, meaning the brightness of SZ Her was measured relative to surrounding, presumably non-varying stars. |
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The students' data was supplemented with observations taken by Kathy on June 29-30, 2004, and
Lynne Raschke on July 1-2, 2004, also on the Nickel. Kathy observed the primary minimum at 11:17:21 PST, and Lynne observed the secondary at 00:10:15 PST. Kathy and Lynne knew when to observe SZ Her by examining the AAVSO charts of Eclipsing Binary Ephemeris and the Rolling Hills Observatory Ephemeris Calculator. In fact, SZ Her was chosen specifically because it would be eclipsing on the scheduled observation run with the students. Fortunately, the Nickel was free these other nights to flesh out the lightcurve. To the right is the folded lightcurve of SZ Her with data from all three nights of observation. A folded lightcurve neatly and clearly displays all the data of an eclipsing binary system; it requires knowledge of the ephemeris, which is an equation of the form: T = To + P*E where T is the time of the primary minimum, To the known time of a primary ecplise, P the period of the system (time from primary to primary minima), and E the number of periods since To. The data is then folded to span phases 0 to 1, with primary minima landing on 0 or 1 and secondary on 0.5. |
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| The students were charged with producing a lightcurve like SZ Her's with the help of the following simple equipment: foam balls of various sizes and colors, scarves, light bulbs of various sizes and wattages, a variometer, a TV turn table, and photodetector. These objects represented the different possible mechanisms and/or processes that the students had suggested for why stars might vary. The foam balls represented planets, scarves clouds of dust, and light bulbs stars. The turn table enabled them to simulate the orbit of objects about each other, and the variometer allowed the students to vary the brightness (which is the same as changing the size). They set up some configuration of the above elements, then generated lightcurves like the one below for each case. By examining the lightcurve (e.g. relative difference of minima) and debating the physics, the students determined that the case where there are two lightbulbs produce the most realistic approximation of the SZ Her Lightcurve. |  |
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These lightcurves are replicas of the students'. The first configuration of two bulbs they tried was a large 25W bulb orbiting a large 60W bulb (pink curve). This setup produces a deep primary minimum when the 25W bulb blocked the light from the 60W and a shallow minimum when the 60W bulb eclipsed the 25W bulb. Next the students replaced the large 25W bulb with a small 25W bulb (blue curve). They observed that the primary minimum was not as deep as in the first configuration because the small 25W bulb did not cover as much of the large 60W bulb as when they had a large 25W bulb. Then they tried changing the relative sizes; they setup a large 25W bulb orbiting a small 40W bulb (yellow curve). Unfortunately, a small 60W bulb was not available, which makes comparison with the other setups tricky; in the lightcurve to the left, the Small 40W/Large 25W data was scaled to the continua of the other two configurations. Actually, this last configuration is the one that produces the largest difference between the primary and secondary minima because when the 25W bulb is in front of the 40W bulb, the latter is completely obscured. Alternatively, when the 40W bulb is in front, it only blocks a small part of the 25W bulb. |
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Nightfall is a terrific
program that models eclipsing binary systems. A detailed description of how to use Nightfall
is given in Observing a Variable Star-Interpreting the Data.
Nightfall uses the convention whereby the primary minimum occurs at phase 0.5 and secondary at 0 and 1. The lightcurve of SZ Her was loaded into Nightfall (green points), and the students adjusted six parameters until the model lightcurve (red curve) fit the data. The parameters and their meaning are as follows: mass ratio is the mass of secondary star over mass of primary star; inclination is the angle at which the system is viewed, with 90° being edge on; primary and secondary fill factors, which relates to the size of the stars and their mass; and temperature of the primary and secondary stars, which relates to their brightness. |
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| In order to find the best fit with reasonable values for the six parameters, the students were given a short lesson on stellar classification and the spectral type of the two SZ Her stars (but not which was which). According to Guiuricin et al. 1981, the primary star in SZ Her is an A5 or A0 star and the secondary star is a F4V star. A stars are usually white stars with temperature in the range 6900-9400K; F stars are white or yellowish-white and 5800-6900K. A0 means that the primary star is toward the hotter limit of the A-type temperature range; and F4V means the secondary is a main sequence or dwarf star. SZ Her is classified as an EA/SD eclipsing binary by VizieR, which means that the secondary minimum is very shallow and that the system is semi-detached (one star is reaching the point where its material will be accreted by the other star). | 
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