Web Publications

More Variable Stars among Bright Visual Binaries

pdf    ps

Dorrit Hoffleit

Yale University Observatory, New Haven, CT 06511

Abstract

A Catalogue of Variable and Visual Binary Stars by D. Proust, F. Ochsenbein, and B. Pettersen (1981) contains "the cream of the crop" of such systems. The catalogue, however, is far from complete. In checking my own compilations for the forthcoming revision of the Bright Star Catalogue, I find that I have 214 variable stars among the Bright Stars that are members of visual binary or multiple systems (not including the systems discovered by occultations or speckle interferometry, astrometric binaries, or spectroscopic binaries). Of these, only about half (102 stars) are in the Proust-Ochsenbein-Pettersen catalogue. In addition, 533 un-named variables and stars suspected of variability, but needing further confirmation, are also members of visual double or multiple systems.