BY Cam

BY Cam is a poorly observed Polar with a Blue magnitude range of 15.0-<17.0.  The visual range over the past 13 years has been 14.0-15.7.  Low states are rare, but the well defined orbital variations of ~2 magnitudes can take BY Cam to mag 17 depending on the true magbitude level of the system.  This occasionally gives a misleading impression that BY Cam has or is entering a low state.

January 2000 proved to be an extremely active period for BY Cam, with short term variations of the order of one magnitude observed visually over a period of 24 hours, with 0.5-0.7 magnitude variations detected over a period of just three hours!  This plot shows activity from January 4th - January 24th 2000.

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