BL Lacertae
"Twinkle, twinkle quasi-star
Biggest puzzle from afar
How unlike the other ones
Brighter than a billion suns
Twinkle, twinkle, quasi-star
How I wonder what you are."
- George Gamow, "Quasar" 1964.
vsots
Gamma Cassiopeiae and the Be Stars
Gamma Cassiopeiae and the Be Stars
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| Father Angelo Secchi made many important contributions to the field of astronomy. |
UV Ceti and the flare stars
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| Figure 1: An infrared image of Proxima Centauri, the closest star to Earth (other than the Sun) and a flare star. From the 2MASS Atlas Image Gallery. Atlas Image courtesy of 2MASS/UMass/IPAC |
Eta Carinae
Sovereign of the South
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| NASA/HST image of Eta Carinae and its pair of billowing gas and dust clouds. |
P Cygni
RR Tauri
"Stars are equal; it is not birth but mass that makes the difference"
- (paraphrasing Voltaire on men)
Birth of a star: getting to the main sequence
FU Orionis
All in the FUor Family
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| Image of FU Ori obtained by Cesar Briceño (Centro de Investigaciones de Astronomia (CIDA), Merida, Venezuela) with the 1.2-m telescope at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory, Mt. |
T Tauri
An Interesting Neighborhood to Live In
The variable star T Tauri was discovered on an October night in 1852 by John Russell Hind. Hind, a noted asteroid hunter, is credited with having discovered 11 minor planets, as well as Nova Ophiuchi 1848 and R Leporis (also known as Hind's Crimson Star).
TU Cassiopeiae
"Cepheids are the most useful stars in the sky."
-L. Campbell and L. Jacchia, 1941, in The Story of Variable Stars
The Most Useful Variable Stars
W Virginis
Not Your Classical Cepheid
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| Click image to enlarge. |