We present an analysis of the anomalous microlensing event, MOA-2010-BLG-073, announced by the Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics survey on 2010-03-18. This event was remarkable because the source was previously known to be photometrically v
ariable. Analyzing the pre-event source lightcurve, we demonstrate that it is an irregular variable over time scales >200d. Its dereddened color, $(V-I)_{S,0}$, is 1.221$pm$0.051mag and from our lens model we derive a source radius of 14.7$pm$1.3 $R_{odot}$, suggesting that it is a red giant star. We initially explored a number of purely microlensing models for the event but found a residual gradient in the data taken prior to and after the event. This is likely to be due to the variability of the source rather than part of the lensing event, so we incorporated a slope parameter in our model in order to derive the true parameters of the lensing system. We find that the lensing system has a mass ratio of q=0.0654$pm$0.0006. The Einstein crossing time of the event, $T_{rm{E}}=44.3$pm$0.1d, was sufficiently long that the lightcurve exhibited parallax effects. In addition, the source trajectory relative to the large caustic structure allowed the orbital motion of the lens system to be detected. Combining the parallax with the Einstein radius, we were able to derive the distance to the lens, $D_L$=2.8$pm$0.4kpc, and the masses of the lensing objects. The primary of the lens is an M-dwarf with $M_{L,p}$=0.16$pm0.03M_{odot}$ while the companion has $M_{L,s}$=11.0$pm2.0M_{rm{J}}$ putting it in the boundary zone between planets and brown dwarfs.
The SuperWASP-I instrument observed 6.7 million stars between 8-15 mag from La Palma during the 2004 May-September season. Our transit-hunting algorithm selected 11,626 objects from the 184,442 stars within the range RA 18hr-21hr. We describe our tho
rough selection procedure whereby catalogue information is exploited along with careful study of the SuperWASP data to filter out, as far as possible, transit mimics. We have identified 35 candidates which we recommend for follow-up observations.
