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Techniques and Results of Observations of Rapid and Ultrarapid Variable Stars
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 April 2016
Extract
The inception of the present era of interest in rapidly varying stars may be identified with M. F. WALKER’s discovery in 1954 (WALKER 1954) of changes in the brightness of the blue object MacRae+43° 1 (now known as MVLyr), on a time scale of a few minutes. Outside of flare stars, few other stellar objects were suspected to vary on such a short time scale. GREENSTEIN’s (1954) spectra showed that MV Lyr resembles an old nova, which stimulated WALKER to look for light fluctuations in old, recurrent, and dwarf novae and related stars. His observational evidence that all members of these classes show variations of various amplitudes and time scales is summarized in the IAU Colloquium on non-stable stars (WALKER 1957). Most spectacular of his discoveries was the existence of 71 sec periodic variations in the light from the remnant of Nova Herculis 1934 (DQ Her) (WALKER 1956).
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- III. Rapid and Ultrarapid Variables (Including X-Rax Sources)
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- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1971
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