Special Notice #291: Brightening of LBV HDE 269006 = R71
July 26, 2012: The luminous blue variable (LBV) HDE 269006 = R71 in the Large Magellanic Cloud is brightening and is currently at V magnitude 8.3.
Observations in the AAVSO International Database going back to 1987 show HDE 269006 at visual magnitude ~10.8 until 2006, when it began to brighten, reaching magnitude ~8.5 in late 2009. It then declined to ~magnitude 9 by late 2012, where it has been since then.