Slavek Rucinski
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto
Update: July 2010
The program
Bright (V < 11), nearby, short-period (P < 1 day) binary systems, mostly from the Hipparcos list, were systematically observed at David Dunlap Observatory with the 1.88m telescope and the Cassegrain spectrograph in 1999 to 2008 with the goal to obtain mean radial velocities and mass-ratios, with an eventual goal of complete light and radial-velocity synthesis model solutions giving system parameters and distances accurate at better than 3% level.
Since contact binaries of the W UMa-type appear to be very numerous in space, with the relative spatial frequency of about 1/500 of FGK dwarfs in the solar vicinity (Rucinski 2002a), most of the targets were inched EW binaries, but with an admixture of EB and EA close binaries. Most of the targets have been observed by us spectroscopically for radial velocity variations for the first time.
A short summary of the DDO Binary Star Program in the IAU Coll. "Close Binaries in the 21st Century: New Opportunities and Challenges", Syros, Greece, 27–30 June, 2005
The most interesting discoveries so far are two contact systems with extreme mass ratios: V753 Mon (q=0.970+/-0.003) - Paper III and SX Crv (q=0.066+/-0.003) - Paper V.
The printed versions of the papers in the PDF format:
Paper I
Paper II
Paper III
Paper IV
Paper V
Paper VI
Paper VII (expl.)
Paper VIII
Paper IX
Paper X
Paper XI
Paper XII
Paper XIII
Paper XIV
Paper XV
Tables of ascii data (note that AJ changed the column format between
the papers, so your reader program must accommodate that):
Table 1, Pap. I
Table 1, Pap. II
Table 1, Pap. III
Table 1, Pap. IV
Table 1, Pap. V
Table 1, Pap. VI
Table 1, Pap. VIII
Table 1, Pap. IX
Table 1, Pap. X (corrected)
Tables 1 and 3, Pap. XI
Tables 1 and 3, Pap. XII
Table 1, Pap. XIII
Tables 1 and 2, Pap. XIV
Tables 1, 3 and 5, Pap. XV
Other papers based on the DDO Binary Star Program data:
AH Vir
AW UMa
W Crv
GSC 1387-475 (shortest period EW)
Contact binaries in triple systems I
Contact binaries in triple systems II
Contact binaries in triple systems III
The binary program described above was conducted with the use of the 1.88m telescope and a Cassegrain medium-resolution spectrograph in its highest-resolution mode. The spectrograph had several gratings permitting other resolutions (R = 4,000 - 15,000), but the program used almost exclusively the highest resolving power of R ~ 15,000.
References:
Contact: Slavek Rucinski: rucinski(AT)astro.utoronto.ca