Starspots on WY Cancri 1988-1994

Session 5 -- Chromospheres/Coronae/Active Binaries
Display presentation, Monday, 30, 1994, 9:20-6:30

[5.16] Starspots on WY Cancri 1988-1994

P.A. Heckert, G.V. Maloney, M.C. Stewart, J.I. Ordway (Western Carolina Univer.), M.A. Hickman (U. Wyoming \& Agnes Scott Coll.), M. Zeilik (U. New Mexico)

In 1988 we started a program to systematically collect annual light curves for the short period RS CVn star, WY Cancri. We model spot parameters for each annual light curve. As previously noted for short period RS CVns, we find that the spots seem to occur in Active Longitude Belts (ALBs) at roughly 90 and 270 degrees. Unlike some other members of the short period RS CVn group (ER Vul, CG Cyg) the spots on WY Cnc appear stable for timescales of a few months and relatively stable over the spot lifetimes of a few years. Correcting for the spot effects, we also use clean fits to our data to find an improved estimate to the mass ratio of this system. The Research Corporation provided generous support for this work. Ron Angione scheduled very generous amounts of telescope time at Mt. Laguna Observatory.

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