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An International Professional / Amateur Photometric Campaign on Be-Stars

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John R. Percy

Department of Astronomy, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 1A7

Abstract

The Be stars are a group of bright B-type stars with emission lines in their spectra. They vary in brightness, by up to a few tenths of a magnitude and on time scales of hours up to years. The nature and cause of this variability are not fully understood. For these reasons, an international professional-amateur photometric campaign has recently been organized by Drs. P. Harmanec, J. Horn, and P. Koubsky of the Ondrejov Observatory of the Czechsolovak Academy of Sciences.

The scope and aims of the photometric campaign are described. The main problems which are encountered in campaigns of this sort - achieving precise observations and reducing them to a standard photometric system - are examined.

Typical light curves of Be stars, obtained with 0.4 m telescopes at the University of Toronto an da tthe Kitt Peak National Observatory, will be shown.