The Faint Cataclysmic Variable Star V677 Andromedae (Abstract)

Volume 47 number 1 (2019)

Lewis M. Cook

1730 Helix Court, Concord, CA 94518; lew.cook@gmail.com

Enrique de Miguel

Departamento Fisica Aplicada, Facultad de Ciencias Experimentales, Universidad de Huelva, Huelva, 21071, Spain; demiguel@uhu.es

Geoffrey Stone

44325 Alder heights Road, Auberry, CA 93602; geofstone@earthlink.net

Gary E. Walker

114 Cove Road, West Dennis, NH 02670; bailyhill14@gmail.com

Abstract

(Abstract only) More than 5000 CCD/CMOS photometric observations of the cataclysmic variable V677 Andromedae were made in the years 2015, 2016, and 2018 and the light curves are compared. The light curves are found to differ slightly from year to year for an unknown reason and there is also a dependence on the level of activity in this binary pair. In its active state, the light curve exhibits a double-humped shape, while in the declining state, the double hump in large part disappears. Our sparse photometry in this state nonetheless strongly suggests it is replaced by a single-hump shaped light curve. The star was too faint for us to observe in the inactive state except for stacked images covering entire cycles. A refined estimate of the period from our 2018 data was found to be 105 minutes, 18.6 seconds, however it is not firmly established if this is the orbital period or a “superhump” period.