A pictorial atlas
Variable stars are stars that change brightness. The brightness changes of these stars can range from a thousandth of a magnitude over periods of a fraction of a second to years, depending on the type of variable star. Over 30000 variable stars are known and catalogued, and many thousands more are suspected to be variable. There are a number of reasons why variable stars change their brightness. Pulsating variables, for example, swell and shrink due to internal forces. While an eclipsing binary will dim when it is eclipsed by a faint companion; and then brightens when the occulting star moves out of the way.
Variable stars fascinate me since ever. I am used to say, because I am variable too.
Anyway, thanks to old and new friends for those thirty thousand clicks on my pictorial atlas.
That's my bino (a Canon 10x30 IS, excellent baby), and that's one of my books.
A pictorial atlas
Variable stars are stars that change brightness. The brightness changes of these stars can range from a thousandth of a magnitude over periods of a fraction of a second to years, depending on the type of variable star. Over 30000 variable stars are known and catalogued, and many thousands more are suspected to be variable. There are a number of reasons why variable stars change their brightness. Pulsating variables, for example, swell and shrink due to internal forces. While an eclipsing binary will dim when it is eclipsed by a faint companion; and then brightens when the occulting star moves out of the way.
Variable stars fascinate me since ever. I am used to say, because I am variable too.
Anyway, thanks to old and new friends for those thirty thousand clicks on my pictorial atlas.
That's my bino (a Canon 10x30 IS, excellent baby), and that's one of my books.