V404 Cygni article published

I was lucky enough to be named as a co-author to an article about this target published in the scientific journal Nature, January 7, 2016.  Here's a link:

Nature article about V404 Cygni

There was also a article published by my variable star astronomy group, AAVSO at:

AAVSO article about observers helping with the science

Very cool...

V404 Cyg in outburst!

This target in the constellation of Cygnus, V404, is known to be a black hole binary paired with a near solar mass companion.  On June 15, 2015 it went into outburst rising from magnitude 19 to about magnitude 12.

I first observed the target on June 19 and the outburst was continuing.  Here is a light curve of it's activity.



This chart contains observations over about a four hour period.  The dark dots show the changes in brightness over the period, the red dots show a nearby comparison star which as you can see, is unchanging.  Each dark dot is a 30 second exposure, measured with photometric software.  Since each dot is 30 seconds, changes in brightness at the two or three minute level can be seen.  Very exiting.