Re: A Star is Born

[Arne Henden <aah@nofs.navy.mil>]

Stupendous Man wrote:
>   This doesn't have anything to do with TASS, but, what the
> heck, it's a slow news day.
> 
>   Amateur astronomers have discovered a "new" star in the act
> of being born!  Well, it's not really new, but it has just
> appeared in the visible portion of the spectrum in the past
> few years; the wind from the young star must be blowing its
> shroud of dust and gas outwards, making it thin enough for
> us to see the star.  Or maybe the star has just increased in
> luminosity.  Either way, it's fascinating.
> 
>   The "new" star is located near M78, a gaseous nebula
> visible in the winter sky.  You can find a discussion of the 
> beast on VSNET bulletin boards.  I've put together a few pictures
> showing its sudden appearance at
> 
>      http://spiff.rit.edu/classes/phys440/lectures/new_star/new_star.html
> 
>   I just thought people might be interested in this 
> event.  It's only the second or third star of this class
> to have "turned on" in the past few decades.  Interested readers
> can look up FU Orionis and company at the ADS site.
> 
Unless you have some access that I don't have, you cannot
get information from "VSNET bulletin boards"; they don't
currently exist.
   I've put an R-band image from the 1.0m at
ftp://ftp.nofs.navy.mil/pub/outgoing/aah/temp/mcneilr.jpg
I have not seen any spectroscopy yet, though there are plenty
of big apertures staring at this object.
   Nice blink between 2MASS and the new amateur image!
Arne