EVIDENCE FOR NON-AXISYMMETRICAL ABSORPTION IN V1315-AQUILAE

V1315 Aquilae is an eclipsing cataclysmic binary with a period of 3.35 h. Its far-red spectrum is dominated by a strong absorption feature, which is identified as the 0 I triplet near 7773 angstrom. Time-resolv ed spectroscopic data have been used to study the radial velocity vari ations of this absorption feature. A comparison star was observed simu ltaneously and used to provide approximate spectrophotometry. The velo city variations are about one-fifth of a period out of phase with the mean motion of the disc, and have a semi-amplitude of 7 2 km s-1. Ligh t curves for the continuum near the 0 I feature and for the absorption line itself show that the continuum is eclipsed but that the absorpti on-line strength shows a more nearly sinusoidal variation, with maximu m absorption near phase 0.5. Although we are unable to propose a detai led model, the results clearly indicate a non-axisymmetric distributio n of absorbing material in the system.