Radial velocity curve of RBS 490

The strength of the emission lines has led to a suggestion that the object is intrinsically faint and correspondingly nearby (33pc), which, if true, would strongly affect estimates of the CV space density. Here we report astrometry, filter photometry, and time-series spectroscopy of this object.

The astrometry gives an absolute parallax of 4.5+/-1.5mas and a relative proper motion of 102mas/yr. A Bayesian procedure gives a very uncertain distance estimate of d~300pc, and the small parallax alone implies d>133pc (at 2 standard deviations). The mean V magnitude is 17.4, which implies M_V_=10.9-5log[d/(200pc)], neglecting extinction.