Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Pegasus (Peg)  ·  Contains:  HD204571  ·  HD204712  ·  HD204862  ·  HD205061  ·  HD205127  ·  M 15  ·  NGC 7078  ·  PK065-27.1
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Wide Field View of M15  OSC and the Eclipsing Binary BO Peg, Steve Lantz
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Wide Field View of M15 OSC and the Eclipsing Binary BO Peg

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Wide Field View of M15  OSC and the Eclipsing Binary BO Peg, Steve Lantz
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Wide Field View of M15 OSC and the Eclipsing Binary BO Peg

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Description

On 4 separate nights (9/24, 9/25, 9/26 and 10/8 in 2023) I imaged the beautiful globular cluster M15 in Pegasus for a total integration time of very close to 7h.  The guiding wasn't as good as I would like, ranging from 0.9 arcsec to as much as 1.80 arcsec over the sessions, so I have improving that as a project (maybe a new mount for Christmas?).  I had to work pretty hard at getting decently sized and shaped stars via image processing techniques.   I also used ASTAP software to scan the field for variables stars and found an interesting eclipsing binary named BO Pegasi.  In a paper published online by Qiang in 2002, it is stated that the primary star is transferring matter to the secondary star, resulting in a steady decrease in the orbital period of 1.26E-7 day/year with a current orbital period of about 0.58 day.  There is also a small cyclic fluctuation in the rate of period decrease that is providing evidence in favor of a particular theory of concern in systems like BO Peg.  ASTAP produced 559 data points of magnitude vs. time over the 4 observational sets for the star.  Panel E shows the location of BO Peg in relation to the globular cluster.  Panel F shows my data reduced to a single phase to generate a partial light curve that is compared to a light curve from 1986 by Yamasaki and Ozasaki; the agreement is encouraging .  I submitted all of the data to the AAVSO (American Association of Variable Star Observers) and in correspondence with a very helpful mentor from AAVSO,  he said I was the only one in the database to have submitted observations of this star.  That's pretty cool!  Finally, in panel G, I show an animation I made for fun of a closeup of BO Peg and a few other stars using 36 frames from the images taken on 9/25; the real time covered by the animation is 1h 37m.  The star dimmed by 0.3 mag during this time.  If you look carefully, you can see the star getting dimmer.  It's not nearly as exciting as a rotating Jupiter, but it does give you an appreciation for how such subtle changes can be so precisely measured even with modest backyard telescopes!

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  • Final
    Wide Field View of M15  OSC and the Eclipsing Binary BO Peg, Steve Lantz
    Original
  • Wide Field View of M15  OSC and the Eclipsing Binary BO Peg, Steve Lantz
    E
  • Wide Field View of M15  OSC and the Eclipsing Binary BO Peg, Steve Lantz
    F
  • Wide Field View of M15  OSC and the Eclipsing Binary BO Peg, Steve Lantz
    G

E

Title: Crop showing position of BO Peg

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F

Title: Comparison of my data to literature.

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G

Title: Animation of BO Peg dimming on 9/25/2023 MDT

Description: Animation assembled from 36 frames covering 1h 37m.

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Sky plot

Sky plot