Daily 4–10 keV MAXI scan comparisons with fixed phase windows leave the 2026 Her X-1 eclipse contrast uncertain

We test a reported eclipse contrast in Her X-1 during its 2026 low state. We use public MAXI scan intervals from 29 January through 14 October. We compare 4–10 keV flux within each UTC day. A fixed orbital clock selects scans wholly within phase −0.06 to +0.06 or reference phase 0.15 to 0.65. The v7.7L fit uses 957 scans in 113 paired days and 28 seven-day error blocks. Reference minus core flux is 0.002397 photons cm^-2 s^-1. Its conditional 95% interval is −0.002502 to 0.007296. A one-sided restricted wild sign test gives p = 0.1520. Smaller and larger core windows also give intervals that include zero. The overlapping v7L 4h product gives 0.003401 with an interval from −0.000956 to 0.007758. The same method detects the known eclipse in each year from 2017 through 2024. We also reproduce the earlier weekly estimates and preserve a coarse-bin timing audit. These results remain compatible with the earlier signal. They do not establish an eclipse detection or its absence under the tested assumptions. The package contains raw FITS and CSV data, source hashes, timing checks, analysis plans, code, selection records, statistical draws, results, and figures. The observations overlap with earlier work, and the analysis is exploratory.

Her X-1 · Hercules X-1 · MAXI · X-ray binary · eclipse · anomalous low state · orbital phase · measurement uncertainty · reproducibility