This talk is about “UGSU cataclysmic variables” - one of the most interesting species in the variable star zoo (in my opinio n). They’re actually not variable stars at all, because they are bina ry systems, in which a red star spills material onto a white dwarf, giving rise to periodic massive eruptions which can brighten the star from mag 15 to mag 9, easily within the range of a backyard telescope. They are very im portant systems in astronomy, because they are the precursors of the type 1 a supernovae, which are used to measure the Hubble-Lemaître constant, and the accelerating expansion of the universe. The light curves of these systems are very interesting - they show ‘wobbles’ which reveal a lot of what’s going on in the binary system and the accretion disk . Last year, I observed a southern sky system called VW Hyi, which was firs t characterised by astronomers from New Zealand and Australia. In addition to the ‘usual’ variations - known as ’superhumps’, I found hints of a different type of variation, but the data were not concl usive enough to confirm it. So this year, with some partners in crime, I&rs quo;m collecting and analysing data on a number of similar systems to look for extra detail in the light curves of these interesting systems. If you a re inspired by this talk you can join the hunt!
started his professional life in academic research - with a degree, PhD and postdoc in Materials Sci ence. He then went off to work in Industry and government for a while (25 y ears) before getting back to research and obtaining a Masters degree in Ast ronomy. He currently works as a research scientist at the International Cen tre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in Perth - working partly on &lsqu o;big data’ (i.e., extremely big, massive data) and partly on astroph ysics research. https://www.i crar.org/people/ikemp/
X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:This talk is about “UGSU cataclysmic variables” - one of the most interesting species in the variable star zoo (in my opinio n). They’re actually not variable stars at all, because they are bina ry systems, in which a red star spills material onto a white dwarf, giving rise to periodic massive eruptions which can brighten the star from mag 15 to mag 9, easily within the range of a backyard telescope. They are very im portant systems in astronomy, because they are the precursors of the type 1 a supernovae, which are used to measure the Hubble-Lemaître constant, and the accelerating expansion of the universe. The light curves of these systems are very interesting - they show ‘wobbles’ which reveal a lot of what’s going on in the binary system and the accretion disk . Last year, I observed a southern sky system called VW Hyi, which was firs t characterised by astronomers from New Zealand and Australia. In addition to the ‘usual’ variations - known as ’superhumps’, I found hints of a different type of variation, but the data were not concl usive enough to confirm it. So this year, with some partners in crime, I&rs quo;m collecting and analysing data on a number of similar systems to look for extra detail in the light curves of these interesting systems. If you a re inspired by this talk you can join the hunt!
s tarted his professional life in academic research - with a degree, PhD and postdoc in Materials Science. He then went off to work in Industry and gove rnment for a while (25 years) before getting back to research and obtaining a Masters degree in Astronomy. He currently works as a research scientist at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in Perth - working partly on ‘big data’ (i.e., extremely big, massive dat a) and partly on astrophysics research. https://www.icrar.org/people/ikemp/
DTSTAMP:20260621T045223 DTSTART;TZID=Australia/Sydney:20201105T193000 DTEND;TZID=Australia/Sydney:20201105T213000 SEQUENCE:0 TRANSP:OPAQUE END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR