Proposal #502

Hi,

My name is Thomas Rutherford and my observer code is "rth."

I have two targets that I'd like to monitor, ASASSN-19ct and ASASSN 20-pv. Both of these targets are mentioned in Alert 838. I am able to get data on these two targets every 4-5 days, but am unable to do so more frequently (sometimes it is more than a week between observations). These observations are in support of HST observations, which for these two stars, occur on May 17 (ASASSN-19ct) and May 30 (ASASSN-20pv).

For both ASASSN-19ct and ASASSN-20pv, there are currently three observers of late, myself and two visual observers (who are typically reporting "fainter than" in their reports). Although our regular observations have been sufficient to get a handle on the stars general behavior, as the HST observation dates approach, I are unable to meet the daily observation requests that the PIs (Drs. Anna Francesca Pala (European Space Agency, ESAC, Spain) and Thomas Kupfer (Texas Tech University) have requested. These targets are also pretty far south at -37d and -49d respectively, which seems to be acting to reduce the number of observers.

Each of these targets need to be observed in "V." The targets are sometimes faint, but do not typically drop below mag 17.8v. Since the targets are faint at times, a total time of 30 minutes on each target is requested. I usually do 120sec x 15 exposures and sum them to get a higher S/N on the targets, but fewer, longer exposures would also work, provided they total 30 minutes on each target.

Daily monitoring for about 60 days is requested (ending on July 01, 2024) since this will meet the request of the PIs to continue observations for 2-3 weeks after the HST observations.

The results would need to be sent to my email address-- I use MaximDL for data reduction, not VPHOT.

Thank you.

Tom Rutherford (rth)