Campaña internacional de seguimiento de Eta Carinae

FERNÁNDEZ LAJÚS E.; SCHWARTZ M.; SALERNO N.; LLINARES C.; GAMEN R.; FARIÑA C.; AMORÍN R.; NIEMELA V.

La Plata, Pcia. Bs. As., Argentina

Congreso; 46 Reunion Anual de la Asociación Argentina de Astronomía; 2003

Asociación Argentina de Astronomía

In 2003.5 Eta Carinae, suspected to be a binary system with a period of 5.52 years (cf. Damineli et al., 2000), was expected to undergo an X-ray eclipse. In the framework of an international campaign to obtain multi-wavelength observations of this event, we have obtained optical CCD images of Eta Carinae. Almost 2800 images were adquired with the 0.8-m reflector telescope at La Plata Observatory in 2003 between January and August. Here we present our optical BVRI light-curves of Eta Car obtained before and during the X-ray eclipse, and compare them with the X-ray light curve. We observed an optical fading of Eta Car similar to that in X-ray, about 10 days after the X-ray eclipse.