Artist's impression of a polar, a magnetic cataclysmic variable. Picture used with permission of Mark A Garlick.

As an example of what can be obtained, data from the CV UZ For are shown here. This is one of a class of short-period CV's known as polars or AM Her stars. The two stars which constitute the binary are very different: a low-mass dwarf star cooler than our sun but which is still burning hydrogen in its core, and a much smaller stellar remnant known as a white dwarf. White dwarves - the evolutionary end-point of a sunlike star - typically contain about as much mass as our own sun, but squeezed into a volume about the size of the Earth. In the case of polars, they are also highly magnetized, with surface magnetic field strengths ranging from 10 to 70 MG. The two stars are so close that they may orbit around each other in only a few hours, with matter being drawn off the ordinary dwarf onto the surface of the white dwarf, giving off X-rays in the process. The white dwarf rotates synchronously with the binary period and its strong magnetic field prevents the infalling matter from forming an accretion disk.

Light curves in three separate energy bands for the eclipsing binary UZ For. Note the ledge-like structure in the eclipse ingress (most clearly seen in the high energy data); the sharp initial fall, followed by the ledge, can be interpreted as evidence of two hotspots near the white dwarf.

	Results: Crab Pulsar
	Results: Eclipse UZ Fornax