Hello,
I took a spectrum of V442 And on the morning of august 22nd. The first image clearly showed an emission. Proper data reduction of the serie compared to Valérie Desnoux spectrum (dated july 31st) show the outburst:
Valérie's spectrum seem to show some faint emission. But evolution is very quick as Christian Buil spectrum taken on the evening of august 22nd shows:
A look at previous years show that V442 And is a very active Be star with period of quiet and period of outbursts. The required observation period in ARASBeAm is set at 30 days so a continuous observation of this target seems a good idea. There are 97 spectra of this star in ARASBeAm/BeSS database. Here is a graph with a spectrum taken about every year, showing activity in 2007, 2010, 2013, 2014, 2016 and now 2017:
Definitively a star to monitor closely...
Last but not least, I am running all my observatory (Losmandy titan mount, robofocus, dome control, cameras, spectrograph lamps...) with PRISM v10 software. Here is a screenshot showing the echelle spectrum (for those who know how to read it, the emission is actually slightly visible on the image), the guiding image, an intensity monitor, a guiding tracking monitor, camera controls, telescope (Gemini.Net) control, and a skymap showing the telescope position. I find very useful to run everything from a single all-in-one software as I do not have to learn multiple software this way and it's all connected or remote (and hopefully soon) automated observations:
And an overexposed (10 sec) guiding image showing V442 And on the fiber tip (not visible due to too long exposure):
Cordialement,
Olivier