Abstract
VARIABLE STAR IN THE RING NEBULA IN LYRA.—Herr Spitaler draws attention in the Astronomische Nachricten, No. 2800, to the apparent variability of the small star near the centre of this well-known nebula. He had made himself pretty well acquainted with the nebula in September 1885, when he had sketched it, but was induced to examine it again last autumn from the note on the “ring-formed nucleus” discovered by means of photography, which Herr E. von Gothard had published in the Astronomische Nachricten, No. 2749. The interior of the ring nebula appeared with a low power to be covered with a faint curtain of light, which a high power showed to be of varying intensity, so that the interior had a faint flocculent appearance; a bright speck of light was also easily récognized midway between the centre of the nebula and the inner edge of the ring on the south-west side. In the eastern portion three faint stars were seen several times, but a fourth star seen by Prof. Vogel, and shown on the photographs of the Bros. Henry, could not be made out. But on July 25 of the present year, during the visit of Prof. Young to the Vienna Observatory, on the telescope being again turned to the nebula a small star was seen at the first glance a very little north-west of the centre, just as it is shown in the Gothard photograph, but a little fainter. The following night it was seen again, but not so distinctly. The star would therefore appear to be variable, and well worth watching. The evidence of Herr von Gothard's photograph, which shows it, whilst a faint star in the neighbourhood is not represented, seems to indicate that it is particularly rich in actinic light.
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Our Astronomical Column . Nature 36, 431 (1887). https://doi.org/10.1038/036431a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/036431a0