2016 schedule

Fri 25th
15:30-16:00
Theatre 106

Deciphering the Enigma of QZ Car

Ed Budding (with help from Stan Walker, Mark Blackford and Roger Butland)

Carter Observatory

The four main components of QZ Car form a pair of close binaries that share a wide orbit with a period of about 50 years. Observing this system is not really as simple as 'two binaries for the price of one', however, as these massive young stars are involved in complex processes of interaction. The present authors have been trying to piece together a comprehensive picture of the system for some time. A review of the various aspects of this effort brings out, in the one target, many of the more general issues in close binary research.

Ed Budding is an Hon Research Fellow at Carter Observatory and School of Chemical and Physical Sciences, VUW, Wellington, and at Dept of Physics and Astronomy, Univ. Canterbury, Christchurch. He has been studying close binary systems for 40+ years.