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THE ASTRONOMER Electronic Circular No 2718      2011 Mar 14 21.10UT
Ed:Guy M Hurst, 16,Westminster Close, Kempshott Rise,  Basingstoke,
Hants, RG22 4PP,England.Telephone/FAX(01256)471074Int:+441256471074
INTERNET: GUY@TAHQ.DEMON.CO.UK      Backup: gmh@wdcc1.bnsc.rl.ac.uk
WORLD WIDE WEB                         http://www.theastronomer.org
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ASTROMETRY: ANNOUNCEMENT BY MINOR PLANET CENTRE
Timothy B. Spahr:
Recent observing practices among both amateur and professional observers 
have resulted in a dramatic increase in problem batches received at the 
Minor Planet Center.  The most troublesome cases involve isolated single 
observations on a single night.  Subtle hints in recent months to 
observers about this bad habit have not, in most cases, been heeded. 
 From this point forward, any submissions containing isolated single 
observations from single nights will be ignored by the MPC, with an 
explanatory note highlighting the deletion being returned to the 
observer.

Let the record show that single-detection observing of moving objects 
has never been acceptable observing practice, and with the advent of 
more efficient detectors, telescopes and observing programs, there has 
been a rather disappointing increase in this sort of poor and incomplete 
submission to the MPC.  Surely if the object is important enough to 
observe, it is important enough to observe properly.  This new policy at 
the MPC is an attempt to show that one observation per night is no 
longer acceptable.

Another common type of problem batch received at the MPC is 
poorly-measured positions from the 'shift-and-stack' technique.  The MPC 
frequently receives one observation per night from various groups using 
this technique.  While these will now be deleted going forward, the MPC 
will also suggest that observers using this method perform at least 
three discrete stacks, repositioning the telescope between subsequent 
stacks.  This process should reduce false positive detections. 
Dithering is essential, and we will strongly encourage it.

Finally, the MPC requests that observers strive to obtain at least three 
positions over at least 30 minutes for all detections.  Best practice 
would be three to five observations over an one to two hour interval for 
discovery purposes.  Follow-up observations can have smaller observation 
intervals, but we will still encourage observers to lengthen observation 
intervals in most cases.
M.P.E.C. 2011-E67

QZ SERPENTIS (c/f E-Circular 2717)
Okayama Univ. of Science team (observer: Imamura-san) reported 
observations on March 12 and 13 of this object. This object declined by 
~ 0.5 mag during 1 day, thus this outburst may be a normal outburst.
However, observations imply that 0.02~0.03 mag variations with the 
period of 0.07 ~ 0.08. Thus this may be a temporary decline and this 
outburst may be a superoutburst. Further observations are required in 
order to confirm how this object evolves.
[vsnet-outburst 12457]

SUPERNOVAE 2011X, 2011Y, AND 2011Z (CHASDE)
2011X   Jan 15.25   13 50 21.36  -52 39 58.5  17.3  63  "W,  20  "S
2011Y   Jan 27.07   08 12 58.25  -27 34 15.7  17.3       --
2011Z   Jan 29.25   13 30 43.04  -20 57 14.0  16.1   1.0"W,   8.3"S
Spectra: 2011X type-IIP; 2011Y: type-Ia; 2011Z: type-Ia then before 
maximum

Guy M Hurst