CHARACTERIZATION OF ECLIPSING BINARY STARS USING OPTICAL DATA

1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
Most stars are in binary system and a function of them appear to an observer as eclipsing.
Under certain conditions, these system allow us to determine fundamental parameters of
stars example; mass and radius together with the orbital parameters.
Binary stars provide a stringent test for stellar evolution when two stars are in wide system,
so they are laboratories for many physical processes when two stars interact with each
other.
Eccentric system can also serve as test of the theory of general relativity thanks to their
determination of their apsidal motion.
Binary stars are important since they are numerous and we can extract more information
about stars by comparing them among themselves. They also give knowledge on basic
characteristics of stars, since, we get their values of masses, temperature, luminosity and
radii.
Binary stars are also ideal distance estimators since absolute magnitude of the components
can be readily obtained from luminosity.
1.2 Theoretical Framework
Eclipsing binaries
Astronomers have estimated that more than half of all stars in the milky way galaxy are
members of double or a more complex multiple star system. Most of these are too far from
Earth for the individual stars to be resolved. In a double star, or binary system, each star
attracts the other gravitationally and orbits about a unique point, the centre of the pair. If
the plane of their orbits lies-on towards Earth, each star will be seen to eclipse once each
orbital period. This is an eclipsing binary.
Eclipsing binary stars with an eccentric orbit are very important stellar systems because they
provide physical and orbital parameters and exhibit some observable phenomena that are
fundamental to our understanding of stellar structure, evolution and tidal phenomena.
Accurately determined physical parameters of their constituents stars, such as their mass,
radius, temperature and luminosity, have contributed to testing and improving stellar
evolution models.
 Binary star; Orbit

Main objectives
1. Selection of an eclipsing binary system.
2. Measure the brightness.
3. Obtain a complete light curve.

Methodology
Observatory telescopes
LAS CUMBRES OBSERVATORY TELESCOPES
These are network of robotic telescopes from the perspective of a lean high tech statup.
The network operates around-the-clock. Calibration observations are made during daytime;
science observations are acquired at night. Observing schedules are stored at site, so
telescopes can continue observing even when an external link is interrupted.
0.4-meter LCO
Las Cumbres Observatory has developed a set of identical 0.4-meter
(diameter) telescopes at its Santa Barbara headquarters. These telescopes are
wholly modified Meade telescopes with custom equatorial mounts and high-
quality CCD cameras. Ten of these telescope have been deployed to LCO
observatory nodes: two to Siding Spring Observatory in Australia, one to Sutherland
Observatory in South Africa, two to Teide Observatory on Tenerife, two to Cerro
Tololo Observatory in Chile, one to McDonald Observatory in Texas, and two
to Haleakala Observatory in Hawaii. All of these telescopes are available for science
observations. These telescopes are also available for education programs to use. A
few hours per semester on these telescopes is reserved for a program to track earth-
orbiting satellites.
Telescope structures

Mounting Meade 16-inch (40cm) RCS tube and 3-element optic

Basic Optics Primary, secondary and Corrector plate (Meade) with

Maximum slewing speed 10 degrees per s

Tracking accuracy without guiding ~1"

Blind pointing accuracy ~30"

Choice of object
Factors to consider in selection
1. Observational constraints
The main constraints to select a target to be observed are the location of the telescope and
the dates for the observations, fixed often by the teaching calendar which may span over one
or two months.
2. Observation period.
The orbital period of the selected system must be short, so that various phases of the period
are observable several times in a month. What is expected is to have between 15 and 20
observations.
3. Visibility of the target
The Right Ascension (RA) and the Declination (Dec) of the target have to be within a certain
range to fit at the best the observing dates and the observatory location.
4. Magnitude of the target
The binary star must be bright enough to have a good signal and not too bright to saturate
the CCD pixels.
 Selection of the catalog
• This section shows step by step how to select a catalogue from the CDS data base Vizier.
• Go to http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr
• Then to select the catalog go to the window « Astronomy » and scroll to : « Binaries:eclipsing
» to select it and click on « Find Catalogs » and then on « Get the Full list of 806 matching
catalogue »
• Scroll down and click on the journal we are supposed to use <<J/ApJ/831/L6>> in the first
column.
• J = Journal ; A+A = Astronomy and Astrophysics Journal ; volume 831, page L6.
• For each catalog there is a direct access to the publication 2016ApJ...831L..6S .
• The description of the catalog and the access to ftp to download it are at : ReadMe+ftp.

Selecting an eclipsing binary in a catalogue

• The stars which can be observed at some observatory, for a date, are selected according to
their coordinates α and δ, Right Ascension and Declination.
• After clicking on <<J/ApJ/831/L6>> we access the query of the catalogue.
• Modify the query by clicking on<< all logs>> number of lines is set to “unlimited” in the
“Preferences” then” submit”.
• Result of the query of all the content of the Catalogue.
Note that the coordinates are given in J2000.
• Select from the name column the binary system to be observed i.e XY cet