2014 programme

Pitfalls for Unwary Photometrists of the Understudied Southern Eclipsing Binaries

David J. W. Moriarty

AAQ & VSS

Many of the targets in the Variable Stars South programme on southern eclipsing binaries have not been studied in detail since discovery, or only partially with data from the ASAS project. When I started on targets in 2011, I could not find minima at the times predicted as the errors in epochs and periods had resulted in large changes over the intervening years. After three years work by the SEBP team, the ephemerides have been greatly improved. However, other problems have been found: puzzling variations in magnitude of the variables and /or their reference stars. For some of the targets, the original recommended comparison stars were found to be listed in the GCVS as New Suspected Variables. For others, the comparison or check stars were found to be variable, but no records of their variability could be found, indicating that these were new variables yet to be described. Several new variable stars, found in the fields around V0594 Car, ST Cen, AS Car, V5552 Sgr, are being studied in more detail.