Nunzio Salerno

Long-term optical monitoring of η Carinae - Multiband light curves for a complete orbital period

Context. The periodicity of 5.5 years for some observational events occurring in η xa0Carinae manifests itself across a large wavelength range and has been associated with its binary nature. These events are supposed to occur when the binary components are close to periastron. To detect the previous periastron passage of η xa0Car in 2003, we started an intensive, ground-based, optical, photometric observing campaign. Aims. We continued observing the object to monitor its photometric behavior and variability across the entire orbital cycle. Methods. Our observation program consisted of daily differential photometry from CCD images, which were acquired using a 0.8xa0m telescope and a standard BVRI filter set at La Plata Observatory. The photometry includes the central object and the surrounding Homunculus nebula. Results. We present up-to-date results of our observing program, including homogeneous photometric data collected betweenxa02003 andxa02008. Our observations demonstrated that η xa0Car has continued increasing in brightness at a constant rate since 1998. In 2006, it reached its brightest magnitude ( V ~ 4.7) since aboutxa01860. The object then suddenly reverted its brightening trend, fading to V = 5.0 at the beginning of 2007, and has maintained a quite steady state since then. We continue the photometric monitoring of η xa0Car in anticipation of the next “periastron passage”, predicted to occur at the beginning of 2009.

The η Carinæ optical 2009.0 event, a new “eclipse-like” phenomenon

Abstract The periodic events occurring in η Carinae have been widely monitored during the last three 5.5-year cycles. The last one recently occurred in January 2009 and more exhaustive observations have been made at different wavelength ranges. If these events are produced when the binary components approach periastron, the timing and sampling of the photometric features can provide more information about the geometry and physics of the system. Thus, we continued with our ground-based optical photometric campaign started in 2003 to record the behaviour of the 2009.0 event in detail. This time the observation program included a new telescope to obtain information from other photometric bands. The daily monitoring consists of the acquisition of CCD images through standard UBVRI filters and a narrow H α passband. The subsequent differential photometry includes the central region of the object and the whole Homunculus nebula. The results of our relative UBVRIH α photometry, performed from November 2008 up to the end of March 2009, are presented in this work, which comprises the totality of the event. The initial rising branch, the maximum, the dip to the minimum and the recovering rising phase strongly resemble a kind of eclipse. All these features happened on time – according to that predicted – although there are some photometric differences in comparison with the previous event. We made a new determination of 2022.8 days for the period value using the present and previous “eclipse-like” event data. These results strongly support the binarity hypothesis for η Car. In this paper, the complete dataset with the photometry of the 2009.0 event is provided to make it readily available for further analysis.