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We investigate K2BS5, an optical transient that we identified in Campaign 13 of the Kepler/K2 archives by the K2 Background Survey, and classify it as a new SU UMa-type dwarf nova. Using the light curve generated from Keplers long-cadence observation mode, we analyze the dwarf nova during quiescence and superoutburst. Following 20 days of quiescence at the start of the observation, the system entered a superoutburst lasting 12 days, after which it experienced at least one rebrightening. K2BS5 clearly meets the criteria for an SU UMa star, but at the peak of the superoutburst, it also shows double-wave oscillations consistent with the spectroscopic orbital period, a phenomenon that closely resembles early superhumps in WZ Sge stars. While we do not classify K2BS5 as a WZ Sge system, we discuss how this phenomenon could complicate efforts to use the suspected detection of early superhumps to distinguish SU UMa-type dwarf novae from the recently recognized class of long-orbital-period WZ Sge systems.

There have been relatively few published long-duration, uninterrupted light curves of magnetic cataclysmic variable stars in which the accreting white dwarf’s rotational frequency is slightly desynchronized from the binary orbital frequency. We report Kepler K2 and TESS observations of two such systems. The first, SDSS J084617.11+245344.1, was observed by the Kepler spacecraft for 80 days during Campaign 16 of the K2 mission, and we identify it as a new asynchronous polar with a likely 4.64 hr orbital period. This is significantly longer than any other asynchronous polar, as well as all but several synchronous polars. Its spin and orbital periods beat against each other to produce a conspicuous 6.77-day beat period, across which the system’s accretion geometry gradually changes. The second system in this study, Paloma, was observed by TESS for one sector and was already known to be asynchronous. Until now, there had been an ambiguity in its spin period, but the TESS power spectrum pinpoints a spin period of 2.27 hr. During the resulting 0.7-day spin–orbit beat period, the light curve phased on the spin modulation alternates between being single and double humped. We explore two possible explanations for this behavior: the accretion flow being diverted from one of the poles for part of the beat cycle, or an eclipse of the emitting region responsible for the second hump.