Left: recent UBVR_CI_C LCs of AX Per covering its 2007–10 active phase. Thin and thick arrows denote the dates of our low- and high-resolution spectra, respectively (Table 1). Vertical dotted lines mark the time of eclipses according to Eq. (1). Right: minima profiles selected from LCs in Fig. 1, and folded with the ephemeris (1). Vertical dashed and solid line mark the light minima during quiescent and active phases, respectively. Denotation in keys, for example, “Q: U₄-2.2”, means quiescent phase, U filter, epoch 4 and a shift by  − 2.2 mag.