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IP Pegasi: Cataclysmic Stellar Variability with Eclipsing Binary Superimposition

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Mary Dombrowski

36 Heywood Dr.

Glastonbury, CT 06033

Presented at the Annual Meeting of the AAVSO, October 25, 1997

Abstract

Because of its unique light curve which reveals eclipsing secondary superimposition due to the line-of-sight orientation of the system's components, the cataclysmic variable IP Pegasi reveals the presence of an unseen companion through periodic changes in magnitude that can be detected visually during times of outburst. Visual magnitude estimates and CCD photometry reveal eclipses of the primary and accretion disk, verifying the accepted model of a cataclysmic variable star system.