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We present new BVRI light curves of UY UMa with no O’Connell effect and a flat bottom secondary eclipse. Light curve synthesis with the Wilson-Devinney code gives a new solution, which is quite different from the previous study: UY UMa is an A-subtype over-contact binary with a small mass ratio of q = 0.21, a high inclination of 81˚.4, a small temperature difference of ΔT = 18˚, a large fill-out factor of f = 0.61, and a third light of approximately 10% of the total systemic light. The absolute dimensions were newly determined. Seventeen new times of minimum light have been calculated from our observations. The period study indicates that the orbital period has intricately varied in a secular period increase in which two cyclical terms with periods of 12y.0 and 46y.3 are superposed. The secular period increase was interpreted to be due to a conservative mass transfer of 2.68 × 10^–8 M⊙/yr from the less massive to the more massive star. The cyclical components are discussed in terms of double-light time contributions from two additional bound stars. The statistical relations of Yang & Qian (2015) among the physical parameters of 45 deep, low mass ratio contact binaries were revisited by using the physical parameters of UY UMa and 25 Kepler contact binaries provided by Şenavci et al. (2016).

We developed a photometric pipeline to be used for a wide field survey. This pipeline employs the difference image analysis (DIA) method appropriate for the photometry of star dense field such as the Galactic bulge. To verify the performance of pipeline, the observed dataset of the open cluster M11 was re-processed. One hundred seventy eight variable stars were newly discovered by analyzing the light curves of which photometric accuracy was improved through the DIA. The total number of variable stars in the M11 observation region is 335, including 157 variable stars discovered by previous studies. We present the catalogue and light curves for the 178 variable stars. This study shows that the photometric pipeline using the DIA is very useful in the detection of variable stars in a cluster.

Study of terrestrial impact craters is important not only in the field of the solar system formation and evolution but also of the Galactic astronomy. The terrestrial impact cratering record recently has been examined, providing short- and intermediate-term periodicities, such as, Myrs, Myrs. The existence of such a periodicity has an implication in the Galactic dynamics, since the terrestrial impact cratering is usually interpreted as a result of the environmental variation during solar orbiting in the Galactic plane. The aim of this paper is to search for a long-term periodicity with a novel method since no attempt has been made so far in searching a long-term periodicity in this research field in spite of its great importance. We apply the cepstrum analysis method to the terrestrial impact cratering record for the first time. As a result of the analysis we have found noticeable peaks in the Fourier power spectrum appear ing at periods of Myrs and Myrs, which seem in a simple resonance with the revolution period of the Sun around the Galactic center. Finally we briefly discuss its implications and suggest theoretical study be pursued to explain such a long-term periodicity.