The July 2007 issue of Sky & Telescope has a two page article on SZ Herculis. If you are at all interested, I recommend reading the article. This is a short period (19.63 hours or 0.8181 days) eclipsing (10 V to 12 V magnitude) binary star system that will be in a favorable position to observe over the next several months. While there have been many visual observations, there is a lack of many photometric observations, particularly filtered observations. Timing can be done visually or with a non-filter photometer (CCD monochrome camera), but for more details on the system, BVRI photometry is desirable. With the large price reduction of the Meade DSI Pro ($129) for anyone interested in getting their feet wet with CCD photometry now is an excellent chance for a minimal amount of money. SZ Herculis would be an excellent project for someone with a DSI Pro (or most any other CCD camera). This could be doe with an 8" scope from the Phoenix area (backyard project). The reason I am sending the note is to see if there are any persons out there interested in doing some CCD (filtered or unfiltered) photometry of SZ Herculis. Stan Gorodenski has indicated an interest and may try BVRI CCD and/or UBV single channel photometry of it. I plan to start BVRI CCD photometry of the system as soon as the weather cooperates. While there is no guarantee the data collected would be worthy of a professional paper, one never knows what may pop out and attract the interest of the professionals. For sure anyone taking on the project would learn much about CCD photometry and I think that in itself would be very satisfying. Once mastered, this project could lead to others. CCD photometry is really not difficult, but does require some work and there are pitfalls. Anyone wishing to tackle this who would like help getting started and someone to act as a mentor I would be happy to help. The first order would be to get images of the star system and that requires finding the star and making sure it is the right star. Not as easy as one might think. When you are sure you have the right star, determining a good exposure times, subtracting dark fields and calibrating with flat fields will produce useable data. Filter data just increases the number of images needed (also needed is determination of exposure times in each filter). Then the fun starts. You can use the AutoStar Image Processing software (or something like AIP4WIN) to get the magnitudes of the star as it varies. Or if you want to use filtered data, produce raw counts for further reductions and transformation. I have started putting together a folder with data on the system. Anyone who has comments or question or interested in joining please drop me an e-mail directly. This could be a fun and educational project. Jeff -- Jeff Hopkins HPO SOFT Counting Photons http://www.hposoft.com/Astro/astro.html Hopkins Phoenix Observatory 7812 West Clayton Drive Phoenix, Arizona 85033-2439 U.S.A. (623)849-5889 (623) 247-1190 (Fax) www.hposoft.com -- See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please send personal replies to the author, not the list.