interesting new paper on variable stars, from EROS group

[Stupendous Man <richmond@a188-l009.rit.edu>]

  The EROS group, who monitor selected fields in the galactic plane,
have published a paper describing their discovery of hundreds of 
variable stars in two particular fields.  You can find it on the 
astro-ph preprint server:

        http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/0204246

  The abstract:
   
       We present the results of a massive variability search based on
       a photometric survey of a six square degree region along the
       Galactic plane at ($l = 305^\circ$, $b = -0.8^\circ$) and ($l =
       330^\circ$, $b = -2.5^\circ$). This survey was performed in
       the framework of the EROS II (Exp\'erience de Recherche
       d'Objets Sombres) microlensing program. The variable stars
       were found among 1,913,576 stars that were monitored
       between April and June 1998 in two passbands, with an
       average of 60 measurements. A new period-search technique
       is proposed which makes use of a statistical variable that
       characterizes the overall regularity of the flux versus phase
       diagram. This method is well suited when the photometric
       data are unevenly distributed in time, as is our case. 1,362
       objects whose luminosity varies were selected. Among them
       we identified 9 Cepheids, 19 RR Lyrae, 34 Miras, 176 eclipsing
       binaries and 266 Semi-Regular stars. Most of them are newly
       identified objects. The cross-identification with known
       catalogues has been performed. The mean distance of the RR
       Lyrae is estimated to be $\sim 4.9 \pm 0.3$ kpc undergoing an
       average absorption of $\sim 3.4 \pm 0.2$ magnitudes. This
       distance is in good agreement with the one of disc stars which
       contribute to the microlensing source star population.Our
       catalogue and light curves are available electronically from the
       CDS, Strasbourg and from our Web site this http URL 


  Note that they provide Yet Another Technique for selecting variable 
stars.  

  Tom asked:

> This from the VSNET report I received today:
...
> Is this "our" M. Richmond?

  One and the same.

                                             Michael Richmond