EUVE Observations of VV Pup

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Session 25 -- EUVE -- Astronomy I
Oral presentation, Tuesday, 8:30-12:30, Zellerbach Auditorium Room

[25.07] EUVE Observations of VV Pup

Paula Szkody (Univ. Wash.), Stephane Vennes (CEA/SSL/UCB), Ed Sion (Villanova Univ.), Knox Long (STScI)

VV Pup is an AM Her type cataclysmic variable with a 44 MG field, a 100 min orbital period and a viewing geometry such that the primary accreting pole passes behind the limb of the white dwarf for a portion of the orbit. EUVE pointed observations as part of the GO program were conducted from Feb 7 to 9, 1993. At that time, VV Pup was in a high state; it only came out of a low accretion episode in Dec 1992, as witnessed by optical observations and its Nov 1992 non-detection by the EUVE all-sky survey. During the Feb observation, the Deep Survey photometer (Lexan) measured, simultaneously with the spectrometers, 72,000 photons in a 42,000 s portion of the exposure, revealing a bright EUV source. We will present the first EUVE spectrum of a magnetic accretor and discuss the differences between the on/off pole phases of the orbit.

This work was partially supported by NASA grant NAGW-3158.

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