A while back, I asked if there were observers who would be interested in
following a suspected CV for outbursts. I asked that it remain somewhat
secret because I didn't want the discoverer to get "scooped" by someone else
in the meantime.
His name is Klaus Bernhard, so we have been calling the object Bernhard01 in
our reports to avoid giving away coordinates or other information.

Well, it appears the object is a genuine CV and we can now call it by the
much less romantic, but much more correct designation 1RXS J053234.9+624755.
Below is the message from Klaus with the essential information. It looks
like we JUST missed the last opportunity to catch an outburst in January,
but the good news is this newly discovered CV in Cam gets to around 11th
mag! in outburst and the next one is due in April.

This does not mean the monitoring we have been doing is over now by any
means. In fact, it would be great to add data from the next outburst to the
eventual paper to be written. So those of you who have been watching, keep
up the vigil. NEVER trust a CV to behave as predicted; it could go off
tonight!

And of course, we have no real indication as to what type of CV this is, so
time series observations will be essential once we do detect it in outburst.

Now that this is out in the open, I will post my charts to the
cvnet-discussion files section and add it to the Watch List on the home
page.

Congratulations to Klaus on his discovery. I have a feeling this will become
a great new CV to follow in Cam, which can best be described as 'the big
blank part of the sky with nothing in it'.

Mike Simonsen

*********************************
C. E. Scovil Observatory
http://home.mindspring.com/~mikesimonsen/
AAVSO Chart Team
charts@...
CVnet Administrator
http://cvnet.aavso.org

**********************************

Hello Mike,

in the meantime good news came from the (professional) observatory in
Sonneberg/Germany.
Thomas Berthold had a look at more than 200 plates of that area and found
some outbursts, so the variability can be seen as confirmed (see below-in
german).
Chris Lloyd (UK) and Thomas Berthold found out, that the existing data
lead to a very regular period of about 134 days, so the next outburst
could be at the begin of April (or some days before or after).
During the outburst the star seems to be relatively bright (at least 11.6
mag).
It would be very interesting to include observations of the next outburst in
a paper for IBVS, which is planned afterwards.
Because the variability is confirmed, and everybody could find the star
easily in the NSVS data base, I think, that it is not necessary to see
it as a "secret". So I would be very glad, if a (short) message about the
star and about the predicted outburst could be included in the cvnet.

Thank you very much!

Best wishes,

Klaus


note from Dr. Berthold:

>Lieber Herr Bernhard,
>
>ich habe ein paar Platten bzw. Filme der Sonneberger Himmelsüber-
>wachung durchgesehen - und kann Ihnen wohl helfen:
>
> J.D. mag Syst Diff P
> Sonneberg:
>Platte pv 47975.312 11.6 GSC1 pv
>Platte pv 48650.344 12.4 GSC1 pv 675.03 :5 135.01
>Platte pg 49058.306 13.7 GSC2 B 407.96 :3 135.99
>Platte pg 50097.427 13.6 GSC2 B 1039.12 :8 129.89
> Ihr Material:
>ROTSE 51463.270 13.06 1365.84 :10 136.58
>ROTSE 51597.175 12.89 133.9 :1 133.9
>
>mean: 134.27 tot: 134.14
>
>Ihre Ausbrüche kann ich leider nicht direkt bestätigen, da zu den
fraglichen
>Tagen leider keine Aufnahmen vorhanden sind.
>
>Plattendaten sind geozentrisch.
>
>Meine Helligkeitsangaben sind natürlich grob, da
>1.) die Katalogsysteme nicht unbedingt im Plattensystem liegen
>2.) die Angaben im Katalog und erst recht von Katalog zu Katalog
> bekannterweise kräftig schwanken
>3.) der Stern auf den Blauplatten nur als zarte Andeutung sichtbar ist
>Insgesamt war der Stern schwierig, da wirklich an der Grenze der Reichweite
>zu arbeiten war; allerdings war das Superereignis von 47975.312 dann aber
>dankenswerterweise extrem hell und auffällig.
>
>
>Benutzt:
>123 Platten/Filme pg J.D. 48220-51601
>111 Platten/Filme pv J.D. 47803-51927
>
>Viele Grüße aus Sonneberg
>Thomas Berthold
>------------------------------------------------------------
>4pi Systeme
>Gesellschaft fuer Astronomie und Informationstechnologie mbH
>Office: +49 (0)3675 / 81210
>------------------------------------------------------------
>Thomas Berthold E-mail: tb@...
> Fax: +49 (0)3675 / 81219
>
>Sonneberg Observatory
>Sternwartestr. 32
>D - 96515 Sonneberg
>GERMANY
>------------------------------------------------------------