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D.C Hannikainen (University of Helsinki), M.L. McCollough (NSSTC/NASA, USA), O. Vilhu, L. Hjalmarsdotter, P. Muhli (University of Helsinki), G.G. Pooley (MRAO, UK), M.P. Rupen (NRAO, USA), S.A. Trushkin (SAO, Russia), P. Hakala (University of Helsinki)
Cygnus X-3 is an enigmatic X-ray binary that ever since its discovery in the late 1960s has evaded simple classification. It is a massive system with the donor star and the compact ' object orbiting each other in an extremely tight orbit only about 5 solar radii apart. The whole system is embedded in the dense wind from the donor star, believed to be a nitrogen rich Wolf-Rayet star with huge mass loss. The nature of the compact object is not known but recent mass estimates suggest it might be a black hole. The system has been observed over the entire electromagnetic spectrum. It is one of the brightest galactic X-ray sources and the brightest radio source ever associated with an X-ray binary, showing huge outbursts with relativistic jets.
We present the results of multiwavelength monitoring from 1996 to 2002, concentrating on an intensive campaign undertaken in October 2002. The latter includes X-ray data from the ASM, PCA and HEXTE on RXTE near-infrared observations obtained with NOTCam on the Nordic Optical Telescope, and multifrequency radio observations from the VLA, Ryle Telescope and RATAN. In addition, we will show the first results of Cygnus X-3 from INTEGRAL during Revolution 23, for which we also had multiwavelength coverage.
Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society,
35#2
© 2003. The American Astronomical Soceity.